“You see the dead, you go hungry and they rape you”, the testimonies of the migrants who survived the Darien jungle

"You see the dead, you go hungry and they rape you."

Solange, a 21-year-old Cuban, who crossed the Darién Gap, the thick jungle shared by Colombia and Panama, puts a voice to the suffering of migrant women at that pass, considered one of the most dangerous border limits for migrants on their route To united states.

They did not rape her because she ran away when she saw that her group was going to be assaulted.

“They took everything, money, cell phones.

The girls were then taken behind some bushes.

In the group they heard the screams (of one of the raped women) ”, explains Doctors Without Borders, which has compiled testimonies of the terrifying route that thousands of Haitian migrants have traveled, mostly, but also Cubans, Africans and Venezuelans.

According to figures from the Panamanian authorities, from June to date 18,000 people have entered that country by land.

So far this year there are 46,483 people, of which 13,395 are women.

However, no one knows how many were left lying dead on the road.

More information

• The Darien jungle, a route of death for Haitian migrants

• The silent exodus of Haitians in Latin America

• Lions, mosquitoes, snakes and heads: what migrant children experience when crossing the Darien jungle

What is clear is that migrant women bear the brunt.

At least 88 of them have reported having been sexually assaulted when they were searched for money and, frequently, having been the object of rape when arriving in Bajo Chiquito, the first population that migrants find in Panama, where they are being treated.

Solange's testimony is not the only one that speaks of the harassment of women.

“They took our food, our money.

They searched me and touched me.

I was having my period and they left me alone.

It was all very aggressive, very dirty.

They raped a young woman of about 20 or 25 years old, ”said Nadine, a 40-year-old Dominican, who traveled from Chile accompanied by her six-year-old daughter and her partner.

For the protection of their lives, MSF only publishes the first name.

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“Assaults by armed men, especially women, are one of the worst risks on this route, which is, in fact, very dangerous. We ask the Colombian and Panamanian authorities to protect the route. That being a migrant is not a crime ”, Raúl López, field coordinator of Doctors without Borders, who has a health center in Bajo Chiquito, tells EL PAÍS. The medical organization was also installed in the Stations of Reception of Migrants (ERM) of Lajas Blancas and San Vicente. Since the end of May they have made 14,000 medical consultations.

To sexual violence must be added the risk for expectant mothers and children. It is known, from testimonies to the NGO, that at least four gave birth on the trail. And that there are cases of unaccompanied minors crossing El Darién, as the director of Migration Colombia, Juan Francisco Espinosa, recently explained. This, the migrants explain, is because during the assaults the families disperse and many children continue the journey without their mothers or accompanied by neighbors who welcome them.

Tamara, a 39-year-old Haitian, is six months pregnant and had no choice.

The woman narrated to the doctors that she was deceived.

He paid 2,600 dollars to an alleged agency that offered to cross them by helicopter through El Darién, but they left them on the mountain and docked them.

“This shouldn't happen.

It can't be that there are people dying there.

They should be able to save people or prevent access.

They have to warn that this path should not be followed ”, explains the woman among the testimonies collected by the NGO.

"A nightmare with 1,001 demons"

To the physical traumas, says Raúl López, we must add the mental ones.

What the migrants live on that route marks them forever.

Several of them sum up the experience as the worst nightmare of their lives, seven or sometimes more days of unimaginable cruelty in a humid jungle, with animals, cliffs and abysses where people with children and swollen rivers fall.

"They warn you from the US, 'don't do it, it's terrible.'

But the need is there and then you think, if he has done it, why shouldn't I be able to do it?

But really, don't do it, it's terrible, ”says Juan, a 59-year-old Cuban.

In his story, as in that of other migrants, there is a constant: the Loma de la Muerte.

Even in videos broadcast on WhatsApp and the social network tiktok you can see the slope of the slippery mountain.

Also the stories of rivers, rapids and sudden floods and images where they are seen dead, as well as injured people simply waiting to die. “On the way we saw a woman asking for help, her leg was broken. She had been alone for six days, she said. He asked for a machete to cut his leg. We couldn't help her, we couldn't carry her, ”Daniel, a 33-year-old Haitian who crossed the Darien with his wife and two girls, aged three years and four months, told MSF.

It's terrifying for everyone to have to leave the wounded behind.

In the case of the fractured lady, Daniel's story saved her life.

Thanks to the information she gave about the place where she was left, she could be rescued in a helicopter by the Panamanian authorities.

Not everyone has the same luck at the border and that is why they hope that this Thursday, when the Governments of Colombia and Panama meet, the organized and humanitarian step will take place that will prevent more migrants from exposing their lives to traffickers and the harshness of the jungle.

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