HRW: The Gulf Clan receives around 68 million dollars annually to control the Darién

He Gulf Clanthe main criminal group Colombia and which completely controls the Colombian border area with Panama, received around 68 million dollars last year for the passage of more than 500 thousand migrants who crossed the dangerous jungle of Darien heading to North America, according to reports from Colombian authorities revealed this Wednesday by Human Rights Surveillance (HRW).

“In the presence of Gulf Clan on the Colombian side, which controls the migratory routescharges resources from the guides and also provides a type of security service that, according to the guides themselves, facilitates Colombian authoritiesaround 125 dollars from each migrant would end up in the hands of Gulf Clan, which would mean that last year they would have obtained close to 68 million dollars from controlling this traffic“explained the director for the Americas of HRW, Juanita Goebertus.

The organization of Human rights presented the report today ‘Abandoned in the Wild: Protection and Assistance to Migrants and Asylum Seekers in the Darien Gap’ where he denounces, through two years of investigation and more than 300 interviews, the negligence of Colombia It is Panama to manage the crisis.

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Murders and rapes

Last year, more than half a million people, especially Venezuelans, crossed this dense and mountainous junglewhere migrants face natural dangers, such as river flooding or animal and insect attacks, as well as robberies, sexual rape and even homicides and disappearances.

In the first three months of 2024, they have already crossed more than 100,000 people, whereby “this year could end up at 800,000 or even a million“, according to Goebertus.

It is paradoxical that a criminal group is responsible for the safety of migrants: “The documentation we made is that the criminal control carried out by the Gulf Clan On the Colombian side, what we seek is to prevent various types of crimes from being committed by these smaller criminal groups that would alert the authorities and that would affect drug trafficking controlled by the Gulf Clan”, said the director of HRW to the Americas.

But it reveals great negligence on the part of the Colombian state in its duty to protect and guarantee, but also that of the Panamanian, since it is in its territory where almost all crimes are committed.

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Panama’s responsibility

“We have documented that, normally, crossing the border with Panama is where most cases of theft and very serious cases of sexual violence occur, especially against women and people. LGBTIcases of forced disappearance and even homicide“, to the point Goebertusin statements to EFE.

On the Panamanian side they are mainly “smaller bands, not necessarily articulated”, that when groups of migrants arrive “They arrest them, steal their belongings, they separate in between nationalities and by gender; That’s where it happens most sexual violence”.

When groups of women and girls are separated, extortion begins, under threat of rape: “is given precisely as a kind of punishment for non-delivery of certain resources”.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) guarantees that it treated more than 1,300 people for sexual violence between April 2021 and January 2024, in cases where there is under-reporting, and following these reports, the Panamanian authorities banned them from providing care in the country.

“The solution is not to expel an organization like MSFis to take seriously the type of cases that are being reported after medical care from a humanitarian organization and take on the task of investigating, judging and sanctioning them, which Panama is not doing.“, to the point Goebertus.

Faced with a crisis that will not end and that is very likely to worsen, given the unstable electoral situation in Venezuela, HRW called to “Panama It is Colombia take it seriously in your international responsibility”.

Colombia has a “lack of strategy”clean before this flow, leaving you in control of the Clan del Golfo and Panama He has a way of approaching it.”very unhappy“, because it “does not focus on the rights of migrants, but on transporting them quickly – sometimes forcibly – to the other border”.

Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.