The almost absolute absence of the Colombian State in the region of the so-called Darién Gap has allowed the expansion of the power of the Gulf Clan which now controls the million-dollar migration business for which it receives tens of millions of dollars annually.
That is what representatives of the American organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) said this Thursday during a press conference in Washington called to present a report on the crisis at the dangerous crossing between Colombia and Panama.
According to Juanita Goebertus, director for the Americas at this NGO, HRW researchers were able to establish that The Clan would be receiving at least 57 million dollars annually through extortion collection both migrants and people in the region who transport undocumented immigrants on their journey to Panama and who, generally, have the United States as their final destination.
“What we are seeing (in the Darién Gap) is not only a humanitarian failure, and in immigration policy but also a security failure because what passing migrants through is enriching a group as dangerous as the Gulf Clan,” Goebertus said.
According to Goebertus, The enrichment of the Clan due to government inaction is calling into question the very capacity of the State to have a monopoly on weapons in the country and giving power to the strongest criminal group in Colombia that daily violates human rights and is involved in all series of illegal activities such as drug trafficking.
(Also read: US announces new humanitarian aid package for migration response)
Live:
Press conference launching “’This hell was my only option’: Abuses against migrants and asylum seekers in the Darien Gap,” a new report from @hrw_espanol.https://t.co/yUBTh5VKk1
— Juanita Goebertus (@JuanitaGoe) November 9, 2023
According to the director, HRW has also been tracking how local authorities, including mayors and councilors, are taking advantage -often openly- of migrant trafficking.
“We know that they have been involved at different levels of this immigration business. They own the boats or sell ‘tourist packages’ for the different passages through the Darién. We have also received information about how the Clan extorts, has control, and buys political support in the region to be able to operate that business. Local authorities do not control the business but the other way around. It is the Clan that is in control, even on the participation of local authorities,” says Goebertus.
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HRW announced, in passing, that it is preparing a second report on the situation, which will focus on the role of local authorities. and in the State’s response to face the crisis.
Juan Pappier, deputy director of HRW for the Americas, also described the cruelty of the methods used by this criminal organization in migrant smuggling.
On the one hand, Pappier says, They control land routes with blood and fire so that migrants do not use the same roads used for coca trafficking.
At the maritime level, however, they use migrants as bait to advance drug shipments. “They launch boats with cocaine in parallel with migrant boats and when the navy approaches they throw them into the sea so they can advance with the boats loaded with drugs,” says Pappier.
Likewise, migrants who cannot pay the costs of the journeys are used as “mules” to transport drugs.
(Keep reading: Why closing the border at the Darien Gap could worsen the migration crisis?)
In general terms, the report presented this Thursday concludes that The immigration policies that the United States has been pushing to stop migration are aggravating the crisis in Darién.
Likewise, it questions the role of other countries such as Panama and Costa Rica that would be facilitating rapid transit through their territory instead of offering conditions so that migrants can remain.
SERGIO GÓMEZ MASERI
EL TIEMPO correspondent
Washington
On Twitter: @sergom68
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