German travel agency criticized for tour of Panama's deadly jungle migrant zone

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

German travel agency criticized for tour of Panama’s deadly jungle migrant zone

Travel startup says it doesn’t ‘holiday where people suffer’ but offers trek in Darién Gap known for dangerous migration routes

Luke Taylor and Kate Connolly
Fri 30 Jun 2023 11.30 BST

“We go where no one goes,” is Wandermut’s tagline, but one of the German tour agency’s packages has left people asking whether some places are better left unexplored.

The travel startup’s 10-day Panama Jungle Tour has been criticised across Latin America in recent weeks for offering tour packages in a region which is home to one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes.

The agency markets its trek through the Darién Gap as a chance to see the unique natural beauties of one of the world’s most pristine tropical forests – and the ultimate survival test for the intrepid.

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But its inaccessibility and lack of development have also turned it into a haven for drug trafficking militias, armed bandits and one of the world’s most desperate migrant crossings.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/30/darien-gap-tour-wandermut-criticism

No-registration link: https://archive.fo/PXML6

[The Unmitigated Gall]

1. "We go where no one goes!"

No one with any sense of shame, at any rate.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Such a bad idea for a tourism destination I'm speechless. Crude, cruel, abhorrent.

Those who feel they have to make that perilous trip are NOT on vacation, themselves. It's not really fun for them, especially those who die.

According to IOM's Missing Migrants Project data, 36 people died in the Darien Gap in 2022. However, anecdotal reports indicate that many migrants die in the Darien Gap and their remains are neither recovered nor reported, so this figure presents only a small fraction of the true number of lives lost. Jan 17, 2023

https://www.iom.int/news/number-migrants-who-embarked-dangerous-darien-gap-route-nearly-doubled-2022