The Darien Gap: The deadly jungle trek where families risk their lives to reach America

Published

2 years ago

November 14, 2022

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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

World

IDF says it mistakenly identified Gaza aid workers as threat – after video of deadly attack emerges

Published

45 mins ago

April 6, 2025

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IDF says it mistakenly identified Gaza aid workers as threat - after video of deadly attack emerges

The IDF says it mistakenly identified a convoy of aid workers as a threat – following the emergence of a video which proved their ambulances were clearly marked when Israeli troops opened fire on them.

The bodies of 15 aid workers – including eight medics working for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) – were found in a “mass grave” after the incident, according to the head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Jonathan Whittall.

The Israeli military originally claimed an investigation found the vehicles did not have any headlights or emergency signals and were therefore targeted as they looked “suspicious”.

But video footage obtained by the PRCS, and verified by Sky News, showed the ambulances and a fire vehicle clearly marked with flashing red lights.

In a briefing from the IDF, it said the ambulances arrived in the Tel Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah shortly after a Hamas police vehicle drove through.

An IDF surveillance aircraft was watching the movement of the ambulances and notified troops on the ground. The IDF said it will not be releasing that footage.

When the ambulances arrived, the soldiers opened fire, thinking the medics were a threat, according to the IDF.

The soldiers were surprised by the convoy stopping on the road and several people getting out quickly and running, the IDF claimed, adding the soldiers were unaware the suspects were in fact unarmed medics.

An Israeli military official would not say how far away troops were when they fired on the vehicles.

The IDF acknowledged that its statement claiming that the ambulances had their lights off was incorrect, and was based on the testimony from the soldiers in the incident.

The newly emerged video footage showed that the ambulances were clearly identifiable and had their lights on, the IDF said.

The IDF added that there will be a re-investigation to look into this discrepancy.

Analysis: Video undermines Israel’s account of aid worker deaths

Addressing the fact the aid workers’ bodies were buried in a mass grave, the IDF said in its briefing this is an approved and regular practice to prevent wild dogs and other animals from eating the corpses.

The IDF could not explain why the ambulances were also buried.

The IDF said six of the 15 people killed were linked to Hamas, but revealed no detail to support the claim.

The newly emerged footage of the incident was discovered on a phone belonging to one of the workers who was killed, PRCS president Dr Younis Al Khatib said.

“His phone was found with his body and he recorded the whole event,” he said. “His last words before being shot, ‘Forgive me, mom. I just wanted to help people. I wanted to save lives’.”

Sky News used an aftermath video and satellite imagery to verify the location and timing of the newly emerged footage of the incident.

It was filmed on 23 March north of Rafah and shows a convoy of marked ambulances and a fire-fighting vehicle travelling south along a road towards the city centre. All the vehicles visible in the convoy have their flashing lights on.

The footage was filmed early in the morning, with a satellite image seen by Sky News taken at 9.48am local time on the same day showing a group of vehicles bunched together off the road.

World

France needs to sort its political mess – or populist winds blowing from the US will strengthen

Published

45 mins ago

April 6, 2025

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France needs to sort its political mess - or populist winds blowing from the US will strengthen

Contemplating the turmoil sown by the return of President Trump, nobody could deny that the results of leadership elections in major nations matter to the rest of the world.

Take just the members of the G7 – so-called rich, industrialised democracies. Italy elected Giorgia Meloni in 2022, confirming the rise of the far-right. She was not only Italy’s first female leader, she was also the first from a neo-fascist party since Mussolini.

The arrival of Donald Trump and Sir Keir Starmer changed the complexion of politics in the US and the UK last year. Germany elected a more hawkish chancellor in waiting this spring.

Barring accidents, the next potentially transformative election in what used to be called the “Western alliance” will not be for two years.

France is due to elect a new president to succeed Emmanuel Macron in the summer of 2027. The contest is already plagued by undercurrents of disruption, conflict between politicians and the law, and populism – similar to the fires burning elsewhere in the US and Europe.

This week French judges banned the frontrunner to win the presidency from running for office for the next five years. It looked as though they have knocked Marine Le Pen out of the race.

Nobody, least of all her, the leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), knows what is going to happen next in French politics.

In opinion polls just over half of the French population, between 54% and 57%, agreed that justice had run its course. “The law is the same for everyone,” President Macron declared.

After lengthy consideration by a tribunal of three judges, Le Pen and nine other former RN MEPs were found guilty of illegally siphoning off some €4.4m (£3.7m) of funds from the European Parliament for political operations in France, not for personal gain.

Le Pen was sentenced to a five-year ban and four years in prison, not to begin before the appeals process had been concluded. Even then that sentence in France would normally amount to two years’ house arrest wearing an ankle alarm.

French presidents, such as Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, have been convicted before. Controversy is flaring because Le Pen was given an extra punishment: the immediate ban on running for political office, starting this week.

Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, her second in command at RN, likened the ban to a “nuclear bomb” and a “political death penalty”. Speaking in L’Assemblee Nationale, of which she is still a member, Le Pen identified herself with Alexei Navalny, the dissident leader murdered in Russia, and Ekrem Imamoglu, the recently imprisoned Turkish opposition leader and mayor of Istanbul.

The ban was imposed at the discretion of the chief judge Benedicte de Perthuis, a former business consultant, Francois Bayrou, France’s Macronist prime minister admitted he was “troubled” by the verdict. Not surprisingly perhaps from him, since the prosecution is appealing against verdicts in a similar case of political embezzlement, in which Bayrou’s party was found guilty but he was acquitted, escaping any possibility of a ban.

Bayrou is expected to be a candidate for the presidency. Meanwhile, RN has the power to bring down his government since it is the largest party in the Assembly, with 37%, but was kept out of power by a coalition.

Populist forces on both sides of the Atlantic rushed to support Marine Le Pen. Matteo Salvini in Italy, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Vladimir Putin‘s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov all denounced what they saw as a “violation of democratic norms”. Hungary’s Viktor Orban said on X “Je suis Marine Le Pen”. Orban’s post came on the same platform Donald Trump Jr posted that “JD Vance was right about everything”, a reference to the US vice president’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he claimed Europe was silencing populist opposition.

President Trump weighed in: “The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech… it is the same ‘playbook’ that was used against me.”

Le Pen has called for bans and tough sentences for corrupt politicians from other parties. In France, mainstream commentators are accusing her of hypocrisy and “Trumpisme” for attacking the courts now.

They also allege, or rather hope, that RN’s anger is endangering Marine Le Pen’s drive to make her party respectable with her so-called “wear a neck-tie strategy”, designed to dispel the loutish, racist image of her father’s Front National.

For all the protests, justice and politics are now inextricably mixed in France. A ban from political campaigning would be pointless for most convicts, who have no political ambitions.

Any suggestion that Le Pen was just being treated like any other citizen was dispelled when it was announced that her appeal would be speeded up to take place next summer. The president of the court de cassation conceded: “Justice knows how to adjust to circumstances… an election deadline in this case.”

The ban could be lifted in time to give Le Pen a year to stand for the presidency. At this stage, a full acquittal seems unlikely, given the weight of evidence against RN. That is awkward for her and her party because, presumably, she would be campaigning while under house arrest.

The best course of action for 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s apparent successor, or “Dauphin”, would be to stick with her now. He would gain little if he split RN by insisting she is fatally wounded.

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If she loses her appeal in a year’s time, his loyalty and indignation would be likely to boost his candidacy. Conventional wisdom is that without a lift he may be slick, but is too callow and too square to stand a chance of becoming president in 2027.

The far right in France is no different from the far right elsewhere – prone to internal rivalries and in-fighting.

The craggy intellectual Eric Zemmour came fourth in the first round in the last presidential contest in 2022. Back then he had the support of Marion Marechal-Le Pen, Marine Le Pen’s flighty niece. The two have since fallen out and may separately bid to carry the far-right torch.

Macron is riding high as an international statesman but he is unpopular at home. Even if he wanted to, he cannot stand again because of term limits.

His attempts to spawn an heir apparent have failed. The 34-year-old prime minister Gabriel Attal led Ensemble to crushing defeat in last year’s parliamentary elections.

Current prime minister Bayrou, and former prime minister Edouard Philippe, will probably make a bid for the centre-right vote. Bruno Retailleau, the trenchantly hardline interior minister, looks a stronger candidate for the Gaullist Les Republicains.

In the last presidential contest, Jean-Luc Melenchon of the hard-left La France Insoumise came third. He may fancy his chances of getting into the final two in 2027 against a right-wing candidate, unless the Socialists get it together. Or perhaps he may let through two finalists from the right and the extreme right.

It is a mess.

France and Europe need effective leadership from a French president. The unnecessary judicial suspension of Marine Le Pen’s candidacy has simply generated uncertainty. Her supporters are outraged and her foes no longer know who they are fighting against.

The French establishment thinks it will all blow over. Just as likely the controversy in France will strengthen the populist winds blowing across the continent and the US.

World

IDF admits mistakenly identifying Gaza aid workers as threat – after video of attack showed ambulances were marked

Published

13 hours ago

April 5, 2025

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The IDF has admitted to mistakenly identifying a convoy of aid workers as a threat – following the emergence of a video which proved their ambulances were clearly marked when Israeli troops opened fire on them.

The Israeli military originally claimed an investigation found the vehicles did not have any headlights or emergency signals and were therefore targeted as they looked “suspicious”.

But video footage obtained by the PRCS, and verified by Sky News, showed the ambulances and a fire vehicle clearly marked with flashing red lights.

In a briefing from the IDF, they said the ambulances arrived in the Tel Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah shortly after a Hamas police vehicle drove through.