Thousands of migrants travel through Central America each year in a bid to reach the United States. Antonio V., who left Angola in February, spoke to the Observers about his journey across Panama, where he encountered armed bandits, venomous snakes and roads littered with the bodies of those who didn’t make it.
More than 10,000 migrants crossed into Panama illegally from Colombia between January and May of this year, according to Panama’s national migration agency. Around 6,100 were from the Caribbean, primarily from Haiti and Cuba, roughly 2,400 hailed from Africa and around 1,800 from Asia.
“We came across a body that had been slashed early into our journey”
Antonio V., a member of the Seventh Day Light of the World church, said he left Angola to escape religious persecution. The Light of the World church, an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, is considered a cult by authorities and was targeted by police during a 2015 raid that human rights activists say left 1,000 civilians dead.
Antonio V. and his family crossed into Namibia, where they boarded a plane to Havana, Cuba and then to Quito, Ecuador. He made his way to the Colombian border, which he crossed with the help of smugglers. In the port city of Turbo, he took a boat to Capurganá, located on the Panama border. That was where his journey turned into a nightmare, he said.
In Capurganá, a mafia-like gang run by a woman nicknamed “Mama Africa” charged each of us $125, or around €112, to take us across the Darién Gap and into Panama. [Editor’s note: Authorities have since arrested several members of this gang. Mama Africa appears at 3’42 in this report on the Spanish-language channel of France 24.]