The Darien Gap: The deadly jungle trek where families risk their lives to reach America
We arrive at Las Tecas camp on motorbikes, I can see it in the distance cut from the jungle, an open area surrounded by a series of wooden frames, covered by huge sheets of tarpaulin.
Beneath, there are over a hundred backpack-style colourful pop-up tents and dozens of hammocks strung from the wooden posts.
As we approach, we see hundreds of people milling around chatting, playing dominoes, or sat outside what I can only describe as a jungle internet cafe.
This is northern Colombia. We are in the middle of nowhere and there is electricity provided by a noisy generator on the side of the hill, makeshift shops, cafes, running water and clean toilets and showers – although they charge a dollar a pop for almost everything, and some here can’t afford that.
Las Tecas is an organised shanty town with a few extras.
I’ve been to more refugee camps, transit camps and migration centres than I can count, but this level of organisation took me by surprise.
The reason is money. The camp is operated by a large smuggling network, and their clients are migrants heading north to the United States.
In front of them lies a thick jungle infested with poisonous snakes, spiders, insects, criminal gangs, terrorist groups, and a 65-mile trek through rivers and mountains.
It is the Darien Gap – the gateway to Panama from Colombia, and the gateway to the United States of America.
For the migrants their last night in this camp is their last night of safety for a while.
If Everest has base camp, the gap has Las Tecas.
We strung our hammocks before night fall and wandered among the migrants, explaining we were joining them for part of their journey.
They’re from all over the world – Nepalese, Africans, Asians, Haitians, but mainly South Americans.
They were friendly and seemed both excited and nervous. What struck all of us was the sheer number of families, and the quite extraordinary number of small children.
I’ve read about the Darien Gap for years, and the only sensible conclusion anyone would reach, is that it’s too dangerous to cross as an adult, let alone as a child.
But the stream of migrants attempting this crossing is equally remarkable.
In the first nine months of this year 150,000 people did it. More than 20,000 of them were children. A decade ago, only barely 200 migrants attempted it.
The smugglers facilitate these daily moves and are making a fortune.
The migrants are desperate, and one can only imagine how awful their lives at home must be to take on this nightmare that takes at least five days in blistering heat and overwhelming humidity.
I’ll be honest, I was somewhat fearful, and I was only attempting a small chunk of the trip.
By 4 o’clock the next morning the camp is awake, breaking down tents and packing whatever they can carry.
Mums and dads get their children ready, dressing them, feeding them breakfast, filling their tiny backpacks, and slipping on their colourful wellington boots.
One baby had been bitten by insects during the night. She was covered in bites and her mother was scratching her back to try to ease the itch.
They haven’t even got to the jungle yet.
At first light they gather to take instructions from a man talking on a loudspeaker.
Then a gate opens, and they flood through.
One of their first obstacles of many is a river, and within minutes of setting off everyone is wet.
Slipping on rocks beneath the water little ones grab their parents, parents grab their children, hoisting them on to their backs and shoulders to try to keep them dry.
But everyone keeps moving.
We criss-cross the rivers following the migrants as they make their way along the valley floor towards higher ground. It takes them at least a day.
Against my usual judgement, we, like many here, are told by our guides to wear wellington boots.
The reason is if you step on a snake, it bites back and if you think about it, that’s at about calf-muscle level.
Out here you wouldn’t last more than 30 minutes from a really nasty snake bite, so we took the boot option.
The problem is we were wading through rivers, so every 10 minutes or so you’re carrying two extra boots of water – and trust me they’re heavy.
I was shown how to lean against a tree and bend my knee towards my back to empty the water. Simple, but annoying, although by now I accept the common wellie could really save one’s life.
Michael Zambrano from Venezuela is carrying his sleeping two-year-old son Lucien in a baby carrier on his chest, and a heavy pack on his back.
His four-year-old son Jordan sticks close by his parents. Mum – Mariangela – is seven months pregnant. They’re expecting a girl and have already named her Ana.
This family has been walking for months.
They left Venezuela seven years ago, lived in Chile for a while, then came to Colombia, where Michael worked as a street performer, making enough money to continue on their journey north.
The family are towards the back of the group.
“We have to save our energy and go slow,” Michael told me.
“I have this backpack plus my baby, so it is harder, but this one is four years old, so he is at least able to walk,” he continued, pointing to Jordan.
Every so often another Venezuelan migrant, Eduardo, who the family has met on the trail helps them, hoisting the little boy on to his shoulders in the deeper water.
Along the route are wooden signs nailed into trees urging them on.
One reads ‘Don’t be afraid’, another, ‘Difficulties vanish when faced with courage’.
But the jungle is full of deadly snakes, spiders and insects. It’s scorching hot and humid.
And very quickly the migrants start to thin out, the youngest and fittest leave the weakest ones behind.
The last of the group is a woman who has already sprained her ankle, it happened in the first hour.
She’s now using a stick for support. Her husband stops her every now and then and takes off her boots to empty the water and check the swelling. And then they carry on.
It’s impossible to imagine she will make it. But she keeps going.
They know they must climb the peak of at least one huge mountain, but the whole journey is arduous.
The rivers can surge if the rain is heavy, and that can simply wash people away to their deaths, especially if they can’t swim, which many cannot.
The first major test our group meets, after the river, is a high hill that is made entirely of mud and rock.
It’s steep and it’s like setting clay. The migrants have to get over this to continue their journey.
Simple wooden steps have been cut into the mud, with ropes to stop people falling into a ravine.
Without these steps their passage would take hours.
My wellies sank up to the top in mud as I hauled myself up. At the top a narrow gap has been dug between mud-covered rock that only one person at a time can pass through.
I edge my way through before descending the muddy staircase, slipping, and sliding, and holding the rope for dear life.
All I’m thinking is, if I’m struggling, how can someone carrying everything they own plus their children even remotely manage this?
And yet they trudge through the feet deep mud.
Some of the men grunt as they make their way up and then down the steep embankment, the women and children look terrified.
We meet Carlos Chinchin rinsing his boots and hands in the river water after getting through the muddy hill.
His toddler Carlito is strapped to his back, a Spiderman sun hat on his head.
Carlos is from Ecuador. His wife and their second child have already made the crossing and are in the United States.
I ask them where they are in the US, he says he doesn’t know.
“They’ve only told me they are in a shelter…” he replied.
It must be harrowing carrying such a small child through the jungle, but Carlos says he is driven by his desire to see his wife Catherine, and his child’s desire to see his little brother Josue.
As he sets off again, he sings to Carlito, calming him down, and comforting this little boy who can’t possibly know what is happening.
A few hours in we bump into Michael again. He looks tired this time – the family has just navigated the mud.
It’s hard he says but he has faith.
“There is nothing stronger than God, he will give us strength to cross all the mud ahead of us.”
It’s a remarkable amount of faith given the US border is now closed to Venezuelans.
The recent change in border policy means many Venezuelans are now stuck in countries along the migration route, unsure where to go.
Michael’s is one of them, but they are determined to carry on. He says he thinks the Americans will understand his situation and have mercy.
But they keep going. This is a huge movement of people which is only expected to increase.
And it’s hard to see how it will stop.
Credits:
Dominique Van Heerden, Gustavo Aleman and Carlos Villalon, producers
Richie Mockler, camera operator
Hamas has said it has “submitted its positive response” to the latest proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza to mediators.
The proposal for a 60-day ceasefire was presented by US President Donald Trump, who has been pushing hard for a deal to end the fighting in Gaza, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to visit the White House next week to discuss a deal.
Mr Trump said Israel had agreed to his proposed ceasefire terms, and he urged Hamas to accept the deal as well.
Hamas’ “positive” response to the proposal had slightly different wording on three issues around humanitarian aid, the status of the Israeli Defence Forces inside Gaza and the language around guarantees beyond the 60-day ceasefire, a source with knowledge of the negotiations revealed.
But the source told Sky News: “Things are looking good.”
A woman cries after her son was killed while on his way to an aid distribution centre. Pic: AP/Jehad Alshrafi
Hamas said it is “fully prepared to immediately enter into a round of negotiations regarding the mechanism for implementing this framework” without elaborating on what needed to be worked out in the proposal’s implementation.
The US said during the ceasefire it would “work with all parties to end the war”.
A Hamas official said on condition of anonymity that the truce could start as early as next week.
An Israeli army tank advances in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel. Pic: AP/Leo Correa
But he added that talks were needed first to establish how many Palestinian prisoners would be released in return for each freed Israeli hostage and to specify the amount of humanitarian aid that will be allowed to enter Gaza during the ceasefire.
He said negotiations on a permanent ceasefire and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in return for the release of the remaining hostages would start on the first day of the truce.
Hamas has been seeking guarantees that the 60-day ceasefire would lead to a total end to the nearly 21-month-old war, which caused previous rounds of negotiations to fail as Mr Netanyahu has insisted that Israel would continue fighting in Gaza to ensure the destruction of Hamas.
The Hamas official said that Mr Trump has guaranteed that the ceasefire will extend beyond 60 days if necessary to reach a peace deal, but there is no confirmation from the US of such a guarantee.
Speaking to journalists on Air Force One, Mr Trump welcomed Hamas’s “positive spirit” to the proposal, adding that there could be a ceasefire deal by next week.
Palestinians dispersing away from tear gas fired at an aid distribution site in Gaza. Pic: AP
A girl mourns the loss of her father, who was killed while heading to an aid distribution hub. Pic: AP/Jehad Alshrafi
Hamas also said it wants more aid to flow through the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies, which comes as the UN human rights officer said it recorded 613 Palestinians killed in Gaza within a month while trying to obtain aid.
Most of them were said to have been killed while trying to reach food distribution points by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, Ravina Shamdasani, said the agency was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings, but added that “it is clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points” operated by GHF.
Read more:
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Palestinians carry aid packages near the GHF distribution centre in Khan Younis. Pic: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana
Ms Shamdasani said that of the total tallied, 509 killings were “GHF-related”, meaning at or near its distribution sites.
The GHF accused the UN of taking its casualty figures “directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry” and of trying “to falsely smear our effort”, which echoed statements to Sky News by the executive director of GHF, Johnnie Moore.
Mr Moore called the UN figures a “disinformation campaign” that is “meant to shut down our efforts” in the Gaza Strip.
Behind the efforts to secure the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release is the remarkable story of one man’s unlikely involvement.
His name is Bishara Bahbah, he’s a Harvard-educated economics professor from Phoenix, Arizona.
In April, his phone rang. It was Hamas.
Since that phone call, Dr Bahbah has been living temporarily in Qatar where he is in direct contact with officials from Hamas. He has emerged as an important back-channel American negotiator. But how?
An inauguration party
I first met Dr Bahbah in January. It was the eve of President Trump’s inauguration and a group of Arab-Americans had thrown a party at a swanky restaurant in Washington DC’s Wharf district.
There was a sense of excitement. Arab-Americans were crediting themselves for having helped Trump over the line in the key swing state of Michigan.
Dr Bahbah negotiating with Hamas for the release of Edan Alexander
Despite traditionally being aligned with the Democrats, Arab-Americans had abandoned Joe Biden in large numbers because of his handling of the Gaza war.
I’d reported from Michigan weeks earlier and been struck by the overwhelming support for Trump. The vibe essentially was ‘it can’t get any worse – we may as well give Trump a shot’.
Mingling among diplomats from Middle Eastern countries, wealthy business owners and even the president of FIFA, I was introduced to an unassuming man in his late 60s.
We got talking and shared stories of his birthplace and my adopted home for a few years – Jerusalem.
Dr Bahbah and Trump
He told me that he still has the deed to his family’s 68 dunum (16 acre) Palestinian orchard.
With nostalgia, he explained how he still had his family’s UN food card which shows their allocated monthly rations from their time living in a refugee camp and in the Jerusalem’s old city.
Dr Bahnah left Jerusalem in 1976. He is now a US citizen but told me Jerusalem would always be home.
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Will Trump achieve a Gaza ceasefire?
He echoed the views I had heard in Michigan, where he had spent many months campaigning as the president of Arab-Americans for Trump.
He dismissed my scepticism that Trump would be any better than Biden for the Palestinians.
We exchanged numbers and agreed to meet for lunch a few weeks later.
A connection with Trump
Dr Bahbah invited two Arab-American friends to our lunch. Over burgers and coke, a block from the White House, we discussed their hopes for Gaza under Trump.
The three men repeated what I had heard on the campaign trail – that things couldn’t get any worse for the Palestinians than they were under Biden.
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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
Trump, they said, would use his pragmatism and transactional nature to create opportunities.
Dr Bahbah displayed to me his own initiative too. He revealed that he got a message to the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to suggest he ought to write a personal letter of congratulations to President Trump.
A letter from Ramallah was on the Oval Office desk on 6 November, a day after the election. It’s the sort of gesture Trump notices.
It was clear to me that the campaigning efforts and continued support of these three wealthy men had been recognised by the Trump administration.
They had become close to key figures in Trump’s team – connections that would, in time, pay off.
There were tensions along the way. When Trump announced he would “own Gaza”, Dr Bahbah was disillusioned.
And then came the AI video of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunning themselves in a Gazan wonderland.
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President shares ‘Trump Gaza’ AI video
“It is provocative and unacceptable,” he told me just after the president posted the video in February.
Trump must have thought it was funny, so he posted it. He loves anything with his name on it.”
Then came the Trump plan to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza. To this, he released a public statement titled Urgent Press Release.
“Arab-Americans for Trump firmly rejects President Donald J Trump’s suggestion to remove – voluntarily or forcibly – Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt and Jordan,” he said.
Letter from Abbas to Trump. Pic: Bishara Bahbah
He then changed the name of his alliance, dropping Trump. It became Arab-Americans for Peace.
I wondered if the wheels were coming off this unlikely alliance.
Was he realising Trump couldn’t or wouldn’t solve the Palestinian issue? But Dr Bahbah maintained faith in the new president.
“I am worried, but at the same time, Trump might be testing the waters to determine what is acceptable…,” he told me in late February as the war dragged on.
“There is no alternative to the two-state solution.”
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He told me that he expected the president and his team to work on the rebuilding of Gaza and work to launch a process that would culminate in the establishment of a Palestinian state, side by side in peace with Israel.
It was, and remains, an expectation at odds with the Trump administration’s official policy.
The phone call
In late April, Dr Bahbah’s phone rang. The man at the other end of the line was Dr Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas.
Dr Bahbah and Dr Hamad had never met – they did not know each other.
But Hamas had identified Dr Bahbah as the Palestinian-American with the most influence in Trump’s administration.
Dr Hamad suggested that they could work together – to secure the release of all the hostages in return for a permanent ceasefire.
Hamas was already using the Qatari government as a conduit to the Americans but Dr Bahbah represented a second channel through which they hoped they could convince President Trump to increase pressure on Israel.
There is a thread of history which runs through this story. It was the widow of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who passed Dr Bahbah’s number to Dr Hamad.
In the 1990s, Dr Bahbah was part of a Palestinian delegation to the multilateral peace talks.
He became close to Arafat but he had no experience of a negotiation as delicate and intractable as this.
The first step was to build trust. Dr Bahbah contacted Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy.
Witkoff and Bahbah had something in common – one a real-estate mogul, the other an academic, neither had any experience in diplomacy. It represented the perfect manifestation of Trump’s ‘outside the box’ methods.
Read more from Sky News:
Hamas gives ‘positive’ response to ceasefire proposal but asks for amendments
Why Netanyahu only wants a 60-day ceasefire
Iran: Still a chance for peace talks with US
But Witkoff was sceptical of Dr Bahbah’s proposal at first. Could he really have any success at securing agreement between Israel and Hamas? A gesture to build trust was necessary.
Bahbah claims he told his new Hamas contact that they needed to prove to the Trump administration that they were serious about negotiating.
Within weeks a remarkable moment more than convinced Dr Bahbah and Witkoff that this new Hamas back-channel could be vitally important.
On 12 May, after 584 days in Hamas captivity, Israeli-American Edan Alexander was released.
We were told at the time that his release was a result of a direct deal between Hamas and the US.
Israel was not involved and the deal was described by Hamas as a “good faith” gesture. Dr Bahbah sees it as his deal.
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Doctors on the frontline
Direct talks took place between Dr Bahbah and five Hamas officials in Doha who would then convey messages back to at least 17 other Hamas leadership figures in both Gaza and Cairo.
Dr Bahbah in turn conveyed Hamas messages back to Witkoff who was not directly involved in the Hamas talks.
A Qatari source told me that Dr Bahbah was “very involved” in the negotiations.
But publicly, the White House has sought to downplay his role, with an official telling Axios in May that “he was involved but tangentially”.
The Israeli government was unaware of his involvement until their own spies discovered the backchannel discussion about the release of Alexander.
Since that April phone call, Dr Bahbah has remained in the Qatari capital, with trips to Cairo, trying to help secure a final agreement.
He is taking no payment from anyone for his work.
As he told me when we first met back in January: “If I can do something to help to end this war and secure a future for the Palestinian people, I will.”
It is one of the most notorious and secret places in Iran.
Somewhere foreign journalists are never allowed to visit or film. The prison where dissidents and critics of Iran’s government disappear – some never to be seen again.
But we went there today, invited by Iranian authorities eager to show the damage done there by Israel.
Evin Prison was hit by Israeli airstrikes the day before a ceasefire ended a 12-day war with Iran. The damage is much greater than thought at the time.
We walked through what’s left of its gates, now a mass of rubble and twisted metal, among just a handful of foreign news media allowed in.
A few hundred yards in, we were shown a building Iranians say was the prison’s hospital.
Behind iron bars, every one of the building’s windows had been blown in. Medical equipment and hospital beds had been ripped apart and shredded.
Debris scattered across what Iran says was the prison hospital
It felt eerie being somewhere normally shut off to the outside world.
On the hill above us, untouched by the airstrikes, the buildings where inmates are incarcerated in reportedly horrific conditions, ominous watch towers silhouetted against the sky.
Evin felt rundown and neglected. There was something ineffably sad and oppressive about the atmosphere as we wandered through the compound.
The Iranians had their reasons to bring us here. The authorities say at least 71 people were killed in the air strikes, some of them inmates, but also visiting family members.
Authorities say this building was the visitor centre
Iran says this is evidence that Israel was not just targeting military or nuclear sites but civilian locations too.
But the press visit highlighted the prison’s notoriety too.
Iran’s critics and human rights groups say Evin is synonymous with the brutal oppression of political prisoners and opponents, and its practice of hostage diplomacy too.
British dual nationals, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe were held here for years before being released in 2022 in exchange for concessions from the UK.
Read more:
Iran: Still a chance for peace talks with US
Why Netanyahu wants a 60-day ceasefire – analysis
Inmates are held in building on a hill above, which has been untouched by airstrikes
Interviewed about the Israeli airstrikes at the time, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe showed only characteristic empathy with her former fellow inmates. Trapped in their cells, she said they must have been terrified.
The Israelis have not fully explained why they put Evin on their target list, but on the same day, the Israeli military said it was “attacking regime targets and government repression bodies in the heart of Tehran”.
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The locus of their strikes were the prison’s two entrances. If they were trying to enable a jailbreak, they failed. No one is reported to have escaped, several inmates are thought to have died.
The breaches the Israeli missiles made in the jail’s perimeter are being closed again quickly. We filmed as a team of masons worked to shut off the outside world again, brick by brick.
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