The government of Panama relieved Foreign Minister Erika Mouynes on Monday, who days before requested international support to face a migratory wave that “has exceeded” the capacity of her country, used as a transit territory.
In her place, Janaina Tewaney Mencomo, current Minister of Government, will take over. The administration of President Laurentino Cortizo, who thanked Mouynes for the services provided, did not detail the reasons for the change.
Last week, during his participation in the 52nd General Assembly of the Organization of American StatesMouynes assured that the continent is currently facing a “Venezuelan migratory wave” that is passing through the inhospitable Darién jungle, on its border with Colombia, going from 2,000 Venezuelan citizens received in 2021 to 111,000 so far this year.
It is “an unprecedented increase,” he explained. All of them seek to reach the United States by land and cross the jungle “deceived by organized crime,” Mouynes said.
“We are in a situation of lack of control and crisis. We have to work together to fix this. Panama is the only country that offers shelter, food, help, but we have exhausted all our resources and our capacity to handle this new outbreak has been exceeded, help us to help”, she pointed out in Peru, the now former minister.
Darién, on the 266 km border between Panama and Colombia, has become a corridor for irregular migrants from South America trying to cross Central America to the United States.
In this virgin jungle, of 575,000 hectares, travelers face multiple dangers, such as wild animals, fast-flowing rivers and criminal groups.
More than 160,000 migrants, the vast majority of them Venezuelans, have crossed the Panamanian jungle so far in 2022, a record that shatters the 2021 record, when 133,000 people did so, more than the total accumulated in the entire previous decade.
Until last year, Haitian citizens made up the majority of migrants.
According to press reports, Mouynes’ departure occurs due to an alleged refusal on his part to support a government candidate for the leadership of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
“He betrayed his own country to support another character,” Carlos Pérez Herrera, leader of the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), wrote on Twitter.
Tewaney will be the third person to lead the chancellery in the Cortizo government (2019-2024).
