Sexual assault of migrants in Darin Gap rises to level rarely seen outside war

[Judi Lynn]

WLRN 91.3 FM | By Julie Turkewitz | The New York Times
Published April 5, 2024 at 11:30 AM EDT



FILE - Haitian migrants wade through water as they cross the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the United States, May 9, 2023. Colombia and Panama are failing to protect hundreds of thousands of migrants who are crossing the Darien jungle on their way to the U.S. and have become increasingly vulnerable to robberies and sexual violence, Human Rights Watch said in a report published Wednesday, April 3, 2024.
Ivan Valencia


DARIÉN GAP, Panama — The girl, 8, from Venezuela, had slept fitfully the night before, wailing in her dreams, her mother said, about the men trying to kill her.

Days earlier, the family had entered the Darién Gap, the jungle straddling Colombia and Panama that in the last three years has become one of the world’s busiest migrant highways. After climbing mountains and crisscrossing rivers in their quest to reach the United States, their group was accosted by a half-dozen men in ski masks, holding long guns and issuing threats.

“Women, take off your clothes!” the assailants shouted, the mother said, before they probed each woman’s intimate parts looking for cash.
Sons, brothers and husbands were forced to watch. Then the men turned to the girl, her mother said, ordering her to undress for a search, too.

Assault, robbery and rape have long been a grim risk of migrant journeys around the globe. But aid groups working in the Darién Gap say that in the past six months they have documented an extraordinary spike in attacks, with patterns and frequencies rarely seen outside of war zones.

Nearly all the attacks, they say, are happening on the Panamanian side of the jungle.

Long-established aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders and UNICEF, with experience working in conflicts, say the attacks are organized and exceptionally cruel. Perpetrators beat victims and take food, even baby formula, leaving people battered and starving in the forest. And the assaults often involve cases in which dozens of women are violated in a single event.

More:
https://www.wlrn.org/americas/2024-04-05/sexual-assault-of-migrants-in-darien-gap-rises-to-level-rarely-seen-outside-war