Panama deports first migrants from Darien Gap under US deal

The 29 Colombian migrants had criminal records and entered Panama through the inhospitable Darien Gap. (AP photo)

PANAMA CITY: Panama today expelled 29 Colombians with criminal records who entered the country through the inhospitable Darien Gap, the first time the country has signed an agreement on the repatriation of migrants signed with the United States in July.

“We have the first flight of the agreement financed by the US,” Panamanian Deputy Security Minister Luis Felipe Icaza, accompanied by US officials, told reporters after the charter flight took off at dawn en route to Bogota.

Before the group boarded the Fokker 50 aircraft, they were lined up along the runway and checked with metal detectors.

The 29 deportees, who had no luggage, were handcuffed and slowly climbed the steps of the plane.

Icaza said the next flight could leave on Friday or Saturday, under the deal Panama struck with the U.S. in July.

Washington has pledged $6 million to repatriate migrants from the Central American country, hoping to reduce the number of illegal crossings at its own southern border.

In the first phase, migrants with criminal records will be deported, but the agreement could also include deporting anyone who enters Panama through the notoriously dangerous and rugged Darien Gap region on their way to the US.

This was the first group of migrants to be expelled under the agreement, although Panama earlier this year sent several charter flights to Colombia carrying Colombian nationals with criminal records.

The Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama has become a major corridor for migrants traveling overland from South America through Central America and Mexico to the US.

Despite the dangers, including attacks by criminal gangs, more than half a million undocumented migrants – mostly Venezuelans – crossed the Darién last year.

Transit countries like Panama and Mexico are under increasing pressure from Washington to tackle the highly contentious migration issue in a US election year.