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A Haitian family is waiting for relatives at Lajas Blancas Camp;
they have crossed the Darien Gap
Photo: Santiago Mesa / DER SPIEGEL
Wickendy Romain was lucky that morning.
The Haitian is standing in the port of Necoclí, a village in northern Colombia, gray muscle shirt, beaming smile.
He did it.
Romain, 31, got hold of one of the few tickets for the trip across the Gulf of Uraba, a scrap of paper with his name and a date on it: October 15, 2021. He believes this is his ticket to a new life: His life in the United States of America.
Behind him, thousands crowd in front of a cordon, families with small children, pregnant women.
They sleep there, eat in line, mothers breastfeed their babies.
Security guards swing sticks, yell "Get out of here," push people back.
Like Romain, almost all of these people are from Haiti.
He too stood in line for his ticket for days.
They all dream the same dream.
"I want to start over," says Romain.
He is a car mechanic.
His talents, he says, are needed in the United States too.
He came here with his wife and three month old daughter Kasumi.
The US government announced three days earlier that it would begin deportation flights to Haiti.
Romain hadn't heard of that.
Few of them suspect at this point that they will probably never arrive in the USA.
The most dangerous part of the path is right in front of Romain and his small family: as soon as he has crossed the Gulf of Uraba, the jungle that connects Colombia with Panama, the jungle of Darién, is waiting there.
A hike of about six days through a hostile environment in which hikers get lost, collapse exhausted and lie there, in which raging rivers have to be crossed, poisonous snakes and pumas are native.
When engineers built the Panamericana, a road connection between Argentina and Alaska, in the 1930s, they left out this stretch of land.
The jungle with its mountains and swamps and the thick vegetation was too inaccessible.
Now there is a gap of about 100 kilometers: the Darién Gap, a lawless area.
Nature has always been killing people here like annoying flies, and yet in Darién, too, humans are the most dangerous beasts: the path is also the route of the drug transporters. On the Colombian side, the jungle is controlled by the notorious Clan del Golfo, who also smuggle people and trade in organs. On the Panamanian side, armed gangs attack families, rob, rape and murder.
There used to be a few thousand migrants a year, mostly adults, walking through the forest.
By October 2021 there were already more than 90,000 people, often families with young children.
Hit by the economic consequences of the pandemic, perhaps driven by the hope for a milder migration policy under US President Joe Biden and by the great longing for a better future.
How many died is unknown.
"I know it's dangerous," says Romain, the Haitian in Necocli, "but I always think positively."
This is how he can get through life well.
Five years ago he emigrated to Chile in search of work and found a job in a car repair shop.
His wife was folding paper bags in a factory.
When things went well, they would send $ 200 a month home to his mother in Haiti.
They had residence permits, a rental apartment and a bank account.
His daughter, born in Chile, is a citizen of the country.
"Our life was good," says Romain, while behind him the masses get into an argument over access to ticket sales.
Lajas Blancas, Darién, Panama
On the other side of the jungle, in Panama, where the green hell ends, a family from Venezuela is sitting in a tent.
A downpour turned the ground into slush.
The Lajas Blancas Camp is a kind of first reception camp.
The survivors reach it in small wooden boats across a river one day after their arrival from the jungle.
The Venezuelan family has been here for weeks.
Seventeen of them went off.
They were 14 when the jungle released them.
On their way through the jungle, they had to cross a river with a strong current.
"We held hands, formed a chain," says Rosmary Gonzalez, 45. Her husband carried the youngest son, four years old, on his shoulders.
The chain broke.
The husband lost his balance and the floods tore him and the boy away.
Likewise the six-year-old cousin.
"It happened right next to me," Gonzalez says, "but I couldn't do anything." Her face screams in pain.
They later found their son's body near the shore.
They put a blanket over him and weighed it down with stones.
The family was attacked and robbed twice by armed men in the forest.
They held a rifle to the head of the barely one year old and threatened to shoot her.
They didn't have any money, so the men took the phones, food, even the diapers, and Rosmary Gonzalez's barring ring, an award from her university, for her law degree.
She walks hunched over, shoulders pulled forward as if her thin body is being crushed by an invisible load.
She has hardly eaten since that day.
When someone hands out boxes of french fries and breaded pork in the camp, she doesn't even look, she just waved a hand.
The family fled Venezuela five years ago.
Gonzalez's husband was close to the political opposition;
his leg was broken during a demonstration.
They found work as tourist guides in Colombia until the pandemic hit and jobs were lost.
Two sons who still live in Bogotá and clean on a daily basis cannot send any money.
That's why they're still here at camp.
They would have to pay for the onward journey.
And also because Gonzalez hopes that they will still find her husband's dead body.
They were married for 20 years.
Eight bodies washed up in the past few days.
"Walking through this forest is the worst thing you can do," she says, "I didn't know." She stares at a photo of her youngest son, a smiling little boy whom she calls "my baby."
Lajas Blancas is the camp of torn families, a place where people stare into nothing with empty eyes.
A few Haitians say that they are still waiting for members of their group who have apparently been raped and can no longer run as fast.
But it's been taking too long.
Time plays against them in the forest.
Necoclí, Colombia
A man is running hastily across the beach. A gold chain hangs around his neck with a pink strawberry-shaped teether for his eleven-month-old daughter. He wants to be called Daniel Peterson *, is 27 years old and has enough money for exactly one night. "I don't want to sleep on the beach with my family," he says, looking around. The bay is littered with small tents and crates made of plastic sheeting. People wash their children in salt water. Many cough. A little girl throws up in the sand.
Pretty much every garage and living room in Necoclí is now rented out.
The place has around 35,000 inhabitants in normal times;
now there are 20,000 refugees.
For many in the village it is the business of their life, for the migrants it is a trap.
If you run out of money, you end up on the beach.
The Venezuelans have teamed up on one section, they own the least.
A pot of puffy white spaghetti stands on a fireplace.
"That's all," says a young man.
No NGO distributes food or water here.
"Where's the UN?" He asks.
They go begging.
Sometimes the Haitians give them something.
Peterson, who wears a football shirt with his dreadlocks, has sold his car and has already spent $ 5,000 on the journey from Chile to here, 1,100 of which in Necoclí alone.
Now the Haitian lives with his family in a small, windowless garage under a corrugated iron roof, where his wife and baby are lying on a mattress in the searing heat and sweating.
He has to shell out seven dollars per head per night for this.
His problem: There are still three weeks until the day of departure.
He has developed a business model to support his family.
He queues for the boat tickets for newcomers and gets paid for them.
In the worst case, his brother, who works in a hospital in Rosenheim in Bavaria, has to send money, he says.
"In the US, you make twelve dollars an hour, not a day," says Peterson.
President Biden is a kind man.
As soon as they have set foot on US soil as Haitians, they are welcome.
It is a story that has been circulated many times on social media and WhatsApp groups.
In fact, until recently, Haitian families had better chances of staying in the country.
But then they got too many.
It is the day that pictures appear on the Internet of Texas border guards driving Haitians through the Rio Grande on horses and with whips.
Peterson's mother calls from Haiti and begs him to return to Chile, where he had worked his way up from being a baker to being a cashier.
Peterson has doubts about his plan. "Actually, I don't feel like going any further," he says. But he is the leader of a group of 28. They are friends who left Chile together. Most of them didn't want to go back. You would have invested a lot. It gets more every day. "I don't want to let her down now," Peterson says.
His wife also wants to go on.
Almost all of their relatives live in the United States, explains Islande Samuel *, 31, with a happy smile.
You miss Haiti.
In the USA you are simply closer to home, maybe you could go there to visit.
“I asked God before we left.
And he told me that I can walk through the forest, ”she says,“ nothing will happen to me. ”Her husband stares at her and says nothing.
The two have been a couple since he was 17 years old and worked as a DJ.
He wanted to study law in Port-au-Prince.
His mother wanted him to emigrate to make money.
Peterson caresses the belly of his daughter, who is lying on his forearm.
He called a meeting that evening to discuss the situation with everyone.
Bajo Chiquito, Darién, Panama
A woman is lying on her back in the water, her upper body naked, she can no longer lift her head. Again and again he falls to the side, his eyes close. An older one keeps her afloat. They come from the jungle, people with bruised feet and torn souls. A young man appears in flip-flops. Another woman is dragging herself over the embankment to the village of Bajo Chiquito, where a few hundred indigenous people live and which is now overrun by twice the number of migrants every day. There is rubbish everywhere, the floor is like a sticky mass that a few chickens trudge through, it smells of urine.
A woman from Haiti sits down on this floor and begins to cry, tells of the many corpses she has seen in the forest, maybe 20, in the water, but also by the wayside, in tents, half-decayed mothers with children. A woman from her group and her child were also left behind. "Why did I make it and the others not," she asks, "I'm not better!" Her legs and feet are covered with bloody scratches, and skin is missing in several places. Another Haitian woman is sitting in the corner of a front yard and cannot get up. She has not eaten for three days. Fortunately, nothing happened to her daughter.
"We don't take any money for them to sleep here," says an elderly indigenous man in whose front yard the Haitian woman is.
Others here charge five dollars for a place under one roof.
In addition to numerous kiosks for everyday items, the village has set up a sales window with a counter for Western Union Money Transfer.
The migrants should leave the place as quickly as possible, but they should pay for it.
The boat trip to Lajas Blancas, to the first reception center, costs about ten dollars per person.
From there it goes on in large, colorful coaches towards Costa Rica. The refugees also have to pay 40 dollars each for this trip. An angry crowd is waiting at the departure point. A group of Haitians. Some of them hiked the jungle together. You have been ambushed. They tell of six masked men, five with guns, one with a machete. "They killed anyone who had no money," says Dieubeni Joli, 39, who is traveling with his sister and little nephew. He looks feverish, his eyes are red. He gestures as if cutting his throat. "A family couldn't give anything, so they killed the twelve-year-old daughter with a machete in front of her parents."seven year old girls to look for money there. Several women and twelve and fourteen year old girls were raped.
"The stories are alike," says Owen Breuil, coordinator of Doctors Without Borders, "the violence is practically carried out in a systematic way." The acts would take place in front of the whole group. "Everyone is traumatized, including the observers and relatives who are powerless and feel guilty." The organization gives survivors out emergency kits containing a hepatitis vaccination and antiretroviral drugs to prevent HIV infection. MSF has documented more than 240 rapes since they set up a crisis center in Bajo Chiquito in April. The actual number of victims is likely to be much higher.
Nobody would have to go through the Darién Gap. There are alternative routes. Migrants could be brought to Panama in boats along the coast and from there - as they are now - transported on by buses. "We are negotiating this with Colombia, but we have not yet reached an agreement," says Dayra Carrizo, Panama's deputy foreign minister. The Colombian politician Carlos Camargo recently spoke of a “humanitarian bridge” during a visit to the region. But so far this bridge does not exist. There is only one agreement that Colombia should only let 500 people through to Darién every day. In fact, complains Carrizo, there are significantly more people. "We want orderly, controlled, safe migration," she says. In Panama, people would be registered and cared for for the first time.
"They send people to the butcher," says Breuil from Doctors Without Borders.
It is true that the Panamanian side has now sent more security forces into the jungle;
rescue missions are taking place.
The cases of sexual violence have recently decreased significantly.
But there can be no question of a safe route.
The site is not militarily controllable, according to the official statement.
Necoclí, Colombia
Marie Bernadine Syon, 35, cradles her baby in her arms.
Her husband, the auto mechanic Romain, takes a sip of lemonade.
“We're making this trip because we have a daughter.
We want her to be better, to have more chances. ”His wife kneads a thin gold chain between her fingers.
Life in Chile has recently become more difficult, says Romain, and the mood in the country has become more hostile. "Go home, you'll take our work away from us," they called out to him. Called him a "terrorist" on the bus. Under the new, conservative government, it has become more and more difficult to extend a residence permit. And in the pandemic, Romain lost his permanent position and only worked.
The mother repeatedly dabs beads of sweat from the sleeping baby's forehead.
His wife suffers from the heat, says Romain, and she hardly has any breast milk.
The two have been together for more than six years.
They have known each other since childhood, moved to Port-au-Prince together and then abroad.
Romain's WhatsApp profile picture is evidence of happy days: a laughing couple, cheek to cheek.
Now his wife avoids his gaze.
She has tears in her eyes.
"She's a little depressed," says Romain, "and angry at me." She blames him.
It was he who decided to make the trip to the USA.
"I'm afraid of the forest," she says, hugging her baby.
Is this your first child?
"Our first one died," both say at the same time.
You have already lost a child.
The baby was only eight months old at the beginning of their relationship, in Haiti, the country "where everything is getting worse every day," as Romain says.
In the past few weeks, more than 7,000 Haitians have been deported from the US border to the crisis state Haiti on 68 deportation flights under Regulation 42.
To a country in which they have not lived for years and which their children have never seen.
It was the Trump administration that issued an ordinance under the premise of epidemic protection that enables the US to kick people out of the country within hours without them being able to apply for asylum.
President Biden decided to continue the policy and apply it more to people from Haiti.
"We think about the goal," says Romain.
He has already bought sachets of soup for the hike.
He also wants to buy a tent, sturdy shoes, flashlights, enough powdered milk and diapers.
He plans to take $ 300 in cash with him.
He doesn't know the prices for the tugs.
The cheapest tugboats currently cost around $ 80 per person, additional fees for sleeping places and crossing rivers may apply, for around $ 10 they carry a backpack, for 30 a child.
Many disappear after the first day.
The sea in Necoclí is calm on this day.
A few children bathe in the shallow water.
Romain's wife has just been gone a few minutes.
Suddenly Romain leans against a white pick-up truck, buries his face in his arms and begins to cry.
Then he runs away.
A few days later he reports via WhatsApp that everything is fine.
The travel preparations were underway.
Peterson has also decided to cross the jungle with his family.
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