At least 33 people died early Wednesday morning when the bus carrying more than 60 migrants collided with another vehicle on a highway in Panamathe authorities reported.
“We have information on 33 people who have died at this time,” said the national director of Migration, Samira Gozaine, on the Telemetro channel. Nationalities were unknown.
66 people were on board the bus that crashed in Gualaca.
According to preliminary versions, “the man who was driving passed the entrance to the shelter, and when he turned around he had this accident,” explained the director of @migrationpanamaSamira Gozaine.
? @violaguevara#TReport pic.twitter.com/mJ25kqrnZF– Telemetro Reporta (@TReporta) February 15, 2023
Previously, the Panamanian president, Laurentino Cortizo, had delivered a preliminary balance of 15 deaths.
The bus was taking migrants from Darién, the jungle area that borders Colombia, to the border crossing with Costa Rica from where they would continue their journey north.
According to the informative site Chiriqui checkpoint the group consisted of adult men and women, as well as more than ten children.
The vehicle had 66 occupants, including the driver and the assistant, said the chief of police traffic operations, commissioner Emiliano Otero, quoted by AFP.
So far the exact causes of the accident and the nationalities of the occupants of the bus are unknown. “We are investigating right now,” Gozaine said by phone.
Several injured were taken by ambulance to the hospital in the city of David, head of the province of Chiriquí, according to the authorities.
The bus driver mistakenly did not stop at the shelter near Gualaca where the travelers were supposed to rest before continuing to the Costa Rican border. After realizing it and turning around to go to that place, the bus collided with a minibus, according to local media.
migrant record
According to data from the Panamanian government, in 2022, 248,000 people entered Panama through the Darién, a figure that pulverized the records of the previous year, when 133,000 migrants made the crossing.
They are mostly Venezuelans, although there are also Ecuadorians, Haitians and Cubans, as well as Africans and Asians.
The Central American migratory route: testimony of a Cuban migrant (II)
To help travelers, the Panamanian government, together with different United Nations agencies and other international organizations, has set up several camps for humanitarian assistance to migrants.
The Panamanian authorities facilitate the transfer of migrants in private buses to Paso Canoas, the border of the Inter-American route with Costa Rica.
With information from AFP.
