Darién Gap

Darién Gap, an approximately 60-mile (100-km) break in the Pan-American Highway, which otherwise runs continuously from Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina. The gap is located in the thickly vegetated marshland and tropical rainforests of the Darién region, which spans the easternmost part of Panama and northwestern Colombia. The Darién Gap is infamously difficult and dangerous to traverse, but, as the only overland route connecting North and South America, it has become a crucial path for migrants traveling northward to the United States and Canada in the 21st century.

History

The region of Darién, situated largely on the isthmus of Panama, lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean and at the crossroads of two continents. This seemingly ideal location drew a number of European settlers during the colonial period. Indeed, one of the first European settlements on the American mainland was the Spanish city of Santa María la Antigua del Darién, founded in 1510 on the western side of the Gulf of Urabá (within the Gulf of Darién). A few years later some colonists left the Darién settlement to found Panama City, and eventually, Santa María was abandoned. Another short-lived attempt at colonization was made in the 17th century, when a Scottish trading company founded a settlement about halfway between Portobelo, Panama, and Cartagena, Colombia. The area’s hot, humid climate and geography typified by tropical rainforests, mangrove swamps, and low mountain ranges perhaps hampered other settlements, and in subsequent centuries Darién remained sparsely populated. A few Indigenous peoples, including the Chocó (specifically the Embera and Wounaan, or Waunana) and the Kuna (Cuna), have traditionally lived in villages scattered throughout the forest. Estimates of their combined local populations range widely, from 1,200 to 25,000.

(Read Britannica’s essay “Are Chunga Palms Really Dangerous?”)

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Gap in the Pan-American Highway

Discussions of constructing a single route to connect North America and South America began in the 1920s, and by 1937, 14 countries, including the United States, had signed the Convention on the Pan-American Highway, whereby they agreed to achieve speedy construction of their respective sections of the highway. By the 1970s most of the highway had been constructed except for the crucial region of Darién. By this time environmentalists and Indigenous peoples had raised concerns about the destruction the highway would cause to the area’s sensitive rainforests and marshlands as well as to the Indigenous peoples’ ways of life. The last of the highway project was ultimately suspended for a number of reasons, including the prevention of the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. The highly contagious viral disease, which affects most cloven-footed domesticated mammals, including cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs, was then infecting large numbers of livestock in South America. The suspension was lifted in 1992, but opposition to the construction of the highway remained among environmentalists and Indigenous peoples. There were also concerns about facilitating drug trafficking and illegal immigration if the road were continued.

21st-century migration

By the 21st century, notwithstanding the lack of infrastructure in the Darién Gap, drug traffickers and armed guerrilla groups had entrenched themselves in the region, benefiting from the area’s remoteness and ineffective security. In addition, the numbers of migrants crossing the gap began to increase in the mid-2010s and accelerated in the 2020s. In the early 2010s Panamanian officials recorded an average of 2,400 crossings per year. That figure rose between 2015 and 2021 to approximately 30,000 per year and intensified in 2021 to more than 130,000. In 2023 more than 500,000 individuals made the crossing. Despite the area’s geographic dangers and the threat from criminals, most migrants were crossing the gap as part of a journey to North America. The largest groups were fleeing violence, economic collapse, and political instability in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Haiti. Changes to immigration policies in Central America had driven many of these refugees, who had been unable to obtain legal entry, to take the more hazardous journey across the Darién Gap. This was seen in the data as an exponential rise in the number of Venezuelans making the crossing in 2022, the same year Mexico began to impose new visa requirements for those arriving from Venezuela.

The Darién Gap is one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world. In 2023 approximately 141 deaths were reported in the region, but, because of the difficulty of tracking fatalities in such remote terrain, the true number is believed to have been much higher. Those traveling through the gap face harsh environmental conditions, including heavy rainfall, which can trigger flooding and landslides. Moreover, the need to cross rivers with strong currents as well as limited access to clean drinking water cause many migrants to experience waterborne illnesses. The region is home to dangerous wildlife, including crocodiles and venomous snakes as well as mosquitoes that can transmit agents responsible for such illnesses as dengue and malaria. Injuries are common, particularly from dense vegetation, including chunga palms, whose long, sharp spines can puncture skin, causing wounds that easily become infected. These environmental dangers are compounded by human threats, such as those from smugglers, criminal groups, human traffickers, and extortionists operating along the route.