The New York Instances interviewed greater than 70 individuals who mentioned they’d been victims of armed theft. Fourteen have been ladies who mentioned they’d suffered sexual violence. Andes Bureau Chief for The New York Instances Julie Turkewitz and photographer Federico Rios have spent months within the Darién Hole area reporting on migration. Listed below are excerpts from their article.
The woman, 8, from Venezuela, had slept fitfully the night time earlier than, wailing in her goals, her mom mentioned, concerning the males attempting to kill her. Days earlier, the household had entered the Darién Hole, the jungle straddling Colombia and Panama that within the final three years has develop into one of many world’s busiest migrant highways. After climbing mountains and crisscrossing rivers of their quest to achieve the USA, their group was accosted by a half-dozen males in ski masks, holding lengthy weapons and issuing threats. “Ladies, take off your garments!” the assailants shouted, the mom mentioned, earlier than they probed every girl’s intimate components on the lookout for money.
Sons, brothers and husbands have been compelled to look at. Then the lads turned to the woman, her mom mentioned, ordering her to undress for a search, too.
Assault, theft and rape have lengthy been a grim threat of migrant journeys across the globe. However help teams working within the Darién Hole say that previously six months they’ve documented a rare spike in assaults, with patterns and frequencies hardly ever seen exterior of struggle zones. Practically all of the assaults, they are saying, are taking place on the Panamanian facet of the jungle.
Lengthy-established help teams, together with Medical doctors With out Borders and UNICEF, with expertise working in conflicts, say the assaults are organized and exceptionally merciless. Perpetrators beat victims and take meals, even child method, leaving folks battered and ravenous within the forest.
And the assaults typically contain circumstances wherein dozens of ladies are violated in a single occasion.
In January and February, Medical doctors With out Borders recorded 328 studies of sexual violence, in contrast with 676 in all of 2023. This 12 months, 113 got here in a single week in February. “The extent of brutality is excessive,” mentioned Luis Eguiluz, the group’s director in Colombia and Panama.
A number of humanitarian organizations, together with Human Rights Watch, accuse Panama’s border police, which is charged with safety within the jungle and has officers patrolling the forest, of failing to guard migrants and permitting perpetrators to commit crimes with impunity.
These accusations come as high Panamanian officers voice rising frustration with the monetary and environmental value that migration has inflicted on the small nation, and amid rising calls amongst political leaders — together with candidates in an upcoming presidential election — to halt the stream of individuals.
Two reporters for The New York Instances captured a snapshot of the violence in March, talking with greater than 70 folks throughout a four-day interval who mentioned they’d been robbed by clusters of armed males within the jungle.
Of these interviewed, 14 have been ladies who mentioned they’d been sexually violated, starting from forcible touching to rape. “They do every kind of evil to you,” mentioned one girl, 40, a mom of six who had been dwelling in Chile. She was surrounded by a half-dozen masked males and raped, she mentioned, after the group she was touring with left her alone within the jungle. (The Instances is withholding the names of people that say they’d been victims of sexual violence to guard their privateness.)
Panama’s high safety official, Juan Manuel Pino, whose ministry oversees the 5,000-person border police, generally known as Senafront, declined repeated requests for an interview.
Talking at a public occasion, Edgar Pitti, the highest Senafront official within the Darién, mentioned officers have been doing all they might to guard migrants, contemplating the jungle’s difficult terrain. “It’s essential to grasp the geographic context,” he mentioned.
A number of Panamanian officers mentioned the issue was not as critical as described by help teams and migrants. [. . .]
For full article, see https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/world/americas/migrants-sexual-assault-darien-gap.html