(6 Oct 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bajo Chiquito, Panama - 4 October 2023
1. Various of migrants wading through Tuquesa river
2. Various of Venezuelan migrant José and his family walking
3. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) José (Last name not given), Venezuelan Migrant:
"We're already seven days into this journey. I can't take it anymore. My wife's feet are very bad. We are in a bad shape, we are not eating anything. We have been begging for food for three days, because they told us the crossing lasts three days, so you come prepared for that. But it has taken us almost four more days and well, we are crazy to get there."
4. Migrants wading through river
5. Migrants coming ashore and walking into jungle
6. Venezuelan migrant Kimberly Morales with her family
7. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Kimberly Morales, Venezuelan Migrant:
"It's too hard, people have to go through that horrible thing, what you go through in there so that people know. Because I can tell anyone about it, but it's not like someone experiences it. They told me it was smooth. No. I went through it, it was horrible. I don't wish it on anyone."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bajo Chiquito, Panama - 5 October 2023
8. Various of migrants in line to register to get on a boat to go Lajas Blancas camp
9. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Carliomar Peña, Venezuelan Migrant:
"It wasn't the best route. It wasn't the safest, but it's the only one we have for now. The route was difficult, Colombia is a section that let's say it's more tolerable, safer, but in Panama the route is tough, it's hard, it's a very risky route. At any moment, you are always putting your life at risk."
10. Various of migrant getting on boat to Lajas Blancas migrant camp

STORYLINE:
Rain-swollen rivers only briefly slowed the otherwise uninterrupted flow of migrants through this jungle-covered border area separating Colombia and Panama and by midweek another 2,000 bedraggled migrants stumbled out of the Darien jungle.

Pregnant women and men carrying children atop their shoulders waded across the waist-deep Tuquesa river and into the Indigenous outpost of Bajo Chiquito.

This week, some migrants emerging from the jungle for whom the crossing had extended to five days, said they ran out of food because their guides promised a quicker trip.

Crossing through the dense, lawless jungle not long ago was unthinkable to most people.

But some migrants arriving this week described an organized trek completed in as little as 2 ½ days on trails marked by colored ribbons and assisted by guides and porters, part of what officials say has become a business generating millions of dollars.

That efficiency combined with the unrelenting economic factors pushing migrants to leave countries like Venezuela, whose citizens account for the majority of them, have resulted in more than 400,000 migrants crossing the Darien this year.

The dizzying number of 500,000 – double last year’s record total – is now on the horizon.

That figure factored into the United States decision to resume deportation flights to Venezuela in the coming days.

Kimberly Morales, 34, from Caracas, Venezuela walked the last 30 minutes to Bajo Chiquito with her husband and their sons ages 8 and 16.

They made the crossing from Colombia in 2 ½ days, but Morales described it as “horrible.”

“I don’t wish it for anyone,” she said.

They paid guides $320 each in Colombia to take them to Panama.


On Thursday, U.S. officials said they had already identified Venezuelans who entered the U.S. illegally after that date who would not be eligible for protections and thus would be flown back to Venezuela.





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