The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Record number of migrant children make dangerous trip through Central American jungle

This year 19,000 crossed the Darien Gap, a jungle between Colombia and Panama, while trying to reach the U.S.

By
October 12, 2021 at 6:02 p.m. EDT
A young migrant is carried near Acandi, Colombia. The number of children and teens who risked their lives to cross the Darien Gap, a dangerous stretch of land that separates Colombia and Panama, reached a record high of 19,000 between January and September, the United Nations Children’s Fund revealed Monday. (Fernando Vergara/AP)

The number of children and teens who risked their lives to cross the Darien Gap, the dangerous jungle that separates Colombia and Panama, reached a record high between January and September, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported Monday.

UNICEF said 19,000 minors faced the rigors of the jungle during that period. At least 1 in 5 of the migrants who walked the area, which is filled with wild animals and occupied by criminals, are children. Half of those children were younger than 5.

“The rapid growth in the influx of children heading north from South America should be urgently treated as a serious humanitarian crisis throughout the region, beyond Panama,” said Jean Gough, UNICEF director for Latin America and the Caribbean, in a statement.

The number of migrant children in the Darien during the nine-month period almost tripled the total number of the last five years. The agency said 109 children were recorded crossing the area in 2017, and two years later, the figure increased to 3,956. In 2020, it dropped to 1,653 due to restrictions related to the pandemic.

This year 150 children, including some newborns, arrived in Panama without their parents, according UNICEF.

Meanwhile, some 20,000 other migrants — many of them in families — are waiting to cross the Darien, paused in Necoclí, a small coastal town in Colombia. Some of them stay in hotels, while others spend nights under tents on the beach.

The economic crises in Latin America and pandemic-related restrictions led more than 67,100 people, the majority of them Haitians, to cross the Darien between January and August, according to Panamanian officials.

Most of the Haitian migrants come from Chile and Brazil, where they took refuge after an earthquake devastated their home country in 2010. Many of the children who make the dangerous journey were born in those South American countries.

Now, they are trying to reach the United States despite the deportation of thousands of migrants in recent weeks.

Children crossing the Darien usually arrive in Panama with illnesses from drinking untreated water or with breathing problems after spending days in the humid jungle, sleeping in the open and crossing rivers. On the Panamanian side, organizations such as UNICEF provide health services and support.

Read more from KidsPost:

Puppet Little Amal walks across Europe to raise awareness of Syrian refugees

For kids, crossing the U.S. border illegally involves fear and hope

Author’s immigrant story inspires debut novel for kids

A Haitian girl’s life, two years after the earthquake

To our commenters

A reminder from the KidsPost team: Our stories are geared to 7- to 13-year-olds. We welcome discussion from readers of all ages, but please follow our community rules and make comments appropriate for that age group.