At least 39 migrants were killed and about 20 were injured on Wednesday when the bus they were traveling in western Panama plunged off a cliff, authorities said.
Officials did not immediately flag the nationalities, but the migrants had crossed the treacherous Darien Gap from Colombia. The Panamanian government usually relocates migrants who have crossed the Darien to a camp near the Costa Rican border on the other side of Panama.
Samira Gozaine, director of Panama’s National Immigration Service, said the bus driver appeared to have passed a shelter entrance and when he tried to turn around to get back onto the highway, the bus skidded off collided with another bus and fell off the cliff.
PANAMA AUTHORITIES INCREASE AWARENESS OF THE DANGERS OF ANIMAL TRAFFICKING
Nearly 39 migrants died early Wednesday in a bus collision in western Panama. The bus driver crashed into another vehicle which resulted in the bus rolling off a cliff.
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The bus was carrying 66 migrants to the shelter.
It was the worst incident involving migrants in Panama in at least a decade. The flow of migrants through Panama has increased in recent years as more risk the perilous crossing as they try to make their way north to the United States.
Last year, nearly 250,000 migrants crossed the Darien jungle – most of them Venezuelans – a record number that nearly doubled the total from a year earlier. In January, more than 24,000 migrants crossed Darien, mostly Haitians and Ecuadorians, according to Panamanian authorities.
