Africans, Asians, Cubans cross the treacherous jungle of the Darien Gap

[cpzilliacus]

Wall Street Journal: Global Migrants Brave Panama's Vipers, Bats, Bandits to Reach U.S. - Africans, Asians, Cubans cross the treacherous jungle of the Darien Gap

METETÍ, Panama–Ahmed Hassan staggered through dense Panamanian jungle, crazy with thirst, his rubber sandals sliding in the mud, fearing he would die thousands of miles from his homeland in Somalia.

"I told my family I would go to the U.S., that was the plan,"  said the 26-year-old truck driver, who said he fled late last year when al-Shabaab militants took his village. He flew to Brazil and made a cross-continental bus trip to Colombia.

In March came his biggest test: crossing the Darien Gap that connects South America with Panama and Mr. Hassan's ultimate goal, the U.S.

"There was no water. There were snakes,"  he said in a small holding center in Metetí, north of the jungle, gashes and bites covering his legs under his traditional sarong. "I thought I might die in that jungle."

Migrants go to extremes for new beginnings. Honduran families put children on northbound trains. Hundreds of Africans recently drowned braving the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat. People cross the deadly Sonoran Desert to get from Mexico to Arizona.

The untamed Darien Gap has become a new route for travelers from as near as Cuba and as far as Nepal. The surge reflects the difficulty of entering the U.S. by traditional paths like arriving on a visa and overstaying, said Marc Rosenblum, a deputy director at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank.

"These people are willing to take this risky and complicated route,"  he said, "and they are lining up to take it."

The Spanish conquered the Inca empire nearly five centuries ago but struggled to dominate the Darien. In the 1690s, a group of Scots created an outpost on the coast but succumbed to disease, malnutrition and Spanish attacks. In 1854, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Isaac Strain led a canal exploration party that was lost there for days, hobbled by parasites and starvation. He declared it impassable, and the canal site was moved farther north.

The Darien is the only section of the Pan American Highway from Alaska to Argentina that has never been completed. The highway ends in the Panamanian hamlet of Yaviza and picks up about 50 miles later in northwestern Colombia. The rain-soaked terrain between is home to hundreds of rare species, including vipers and jaguars, and to bloodsucking bats and mosquitoes that can carry malaria.

[mgk920]

The 'gap' is shorter than that, about 50 km (about the distance between downtown Appleton, WI and downtown Green Bay, WI), perhaps '50 miles' (80 km) if a reasonably-engineered for the topography road is considered.

That said, I have always been at awe as to the difficulties that some are willing to endure to get here, regardless of 'legality' - of the source countries mentioned, only Cubans are currently automatically allowed to legally stay in the USA if they are proven to have set a 'dry foot' on sovereign USA land.

Oh yea, the article is behind their paywall.

 

Mike

[cpzilliacus]

The 'gap' is shorter than that, about 50 km (about the distance between downtown Appleton, WI and downtown Green Bay, WI), perhaps '50 miles' (80 km) if a reasonably-engineered for the topography road is considered.

That said, I have always been at awe as to the difficulties that some are willing to endure to get here, regardless of 'legality' - of the source countries mentioned, only Cubans are currently automatically allowed to legally stay in the USA if they are proven to have set a 'dry foot' on sovereign USA land.

Oh yea, the article is behind their paywall.

 

Mike

PM me with a real e-mail address and I will send you a link that should work even with the paywall.