This remote strip of northwest Colombia is one of the most busy migratory corridors in the world

The ships began arriving in mid -morning this fishing village located in the Torrid Caribbean Costa de Colombia.The passengers who landed were nervous but excited to be moving again.

They climbed a spring, luggage, jugs of water, camping equipment and children's stairs to a bustling welcome party of smugglers, motorcycle taxi drivers, as well as horse riders and carts and carts.

An employee of a ship company with a plastic tank in the back sprified with disinfectant everywhere.

Then the bargain began.

"Thirty dollars per person?" Asked Ernest Tassi, who is from the African Nation of Cameroon, horrified by the rate of a five -mile motorcycle excursion to the border with Panama."Very expensive!".

Tassi, 35, a French speaker who learned Spanish while he was stranded in Ecuador during the pandemic, was translating for a contingent of Haitians, men, women and children, who had met on his journey to the north.

This remote strip of northwest Colombia has become one of the world's busiest migratory corridors.Geography dictates that anyone who travels through South America must cross it to reach the United States.

Migrant trafficking began to increase approximately a decade ago and then drastically reduced in 2020, when countries closed borders in response to pandemic.This year has experienced an amazing rebound, as travel restrictions have softened, allowing the flow of repressed demand at a time when regional economies have sunk, reducing labor opportunities and income and income.

In the first nine months of this year, the authorities of Panama registered a record of 91,305 foreigners who entered the country by land from Colombia, more than during the previous seven years together.

Migrants include Latin Americans, Africans, Asians and originally from the Middle East.Approximately 75% are Haitians, many of whom had been living in Chile and Brazil.

The smuggers and drivers on the dock here in the city of Acandí have such a high demand that they were not willing to lower prices for Tassi.

He talked to them in Spanish and then transmitted the details in French to his Haitian travel companions, who explained everything to the rest in Haitian Creole.They would be traveling at the back of motorcycles to a camp to spend the night.

After eating and drinking some of the sellers of the dock, the group left in a noisy "Mad Max" convoy in the jungle.

They were heading towards Darién's cap, the narrow tropical jungle strip that joins South America and Central America.

He had ever considered impenetrable.But migrants and traffickers have turned wild nature into a tropical turnstile despite the multitude of dangers, which include snakes and poisonous insects, thieves and various diseases.

Panamanian authorities have registered at least 50 deaths of migrants this year in the Darién, although the real number is probably much higher, since many bodies never recover.

From Panama, migrants must make their way through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico to the border with the United States, a routine of 2,500 miles in which they face ruthless bandits, unscrupulous smugglers, corrupt police and campsEscuáido.

The scenario of this odyssey is the Colombian people of Necoclí, where hundreds of migrants from all over the world bordered by palm trees.Thousands more stay in hotels and private houses.

Everyone is waiting to cross Urabá's Gulf to Acandí, 90 minutes away, in passenger boats that carry, individually, about 50 people.

The wait is usually one month or more because the government, in an attempt to relieve the bottleneck on the route to Panama, allows carriers to sell only 500 tickets per day.Every morning, migrants meet at the docks of the boats, hoping to obtain last -minute trips, perhaps benefiting from a cancellation or people who do not present.

The kidnappings and assaults of migrants, unbridled in Mexican border cities, are unusual in necoclí, where traffic is well organized, although sometimes it is chaotic.The global influx is an unexpected gain for fading tourist place to the edge of endless extensions of banana plantations.

Among those who camped recently were Luther Victor, his wife, three children and his brother.A wooden fishing boat docked on the beach, near its tent, served as a common table and place to hang the clothes to dry.

Victor and his family were among the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who sought refuge in Brazil and Chile after the devastating earthquake of 2010 in Haiti.They were welcome to the beginning.

Victor, 46, worked as a welder in southern Brazil.But a boom in construction failed.Then, the pandemic got everything worse, so he and his family, like so many Haitians in South America, decided to flee to the United States.

In September, they stripped their belongings and left, taking public buses through Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.

"My aunt in Miami tells us that life is better there, we can find work, education for our children," said Victor."In Brazil you work and work, but hardly you want enough to pay the rent and feed your family".

The migrants who accumulate here talk about loved ones and former neighbors who are now in Miami and New York, names of places that leave their languages as easily as port prince, lakes, Mumbai, Havana and Caracas.They exude the determination of people for whom there is no turning back.

But for now, they have no choice but to wait in necoclí.

Many quickly exhaust their savings and ask for more cash from their relatives in the United States.They line up for hours in the few ATMs.Changes grobing bundles of dollars are apparently.Price speculation is widespread.With few public facilities, bars and restaurants even charge migrants for using bathrooms.

Hunting vendors trade with a variety of camping items: campaign houses, sleep mats, mountain boots, portable stoves, insect repellent and a dark liquid in amber bottles without labeling that supposedly keeps snakes away.

The tumults stranded walk from one place to another along the coastal boardwalk, check the goods, stop to take a snack and bet some pesos in gambling, including a handmade roulette that a Haitian entrepreneur installed on the esplanade.The usual soundtrack is a Haitian rhythm that leaves various sound equipment.

“We have been in necoclí for 22 days.We can't expect anymore! ”Commented Darlene Martínez Pérez, originally from Puerto Príncipe, who was heading to Florida.

Resided in the Dominican Republic, which limits with Haiti, for 11 years before leaving for Colombia.

Like many, she was dismayed by the recent images of Del Río, Texas, where agents of the border on horseback border.US authorities expelled thousands of people to their Caribbean homeland.

"That was very sad and painful," said Martínez Pérez.“I would like President Biden to know that we suffer a lot to come here.Neither the horses nor the beatings will stop us at this time.We can't go back now ".

The scenes in this Strip of Colombia illustrate how illegal migration to the United States is evolving.

The migrants who headed to the border between the United States and Mexico once almost exclusively came from Mexico and Central America.Now, the movement has acquired the multinational character that prevails in Europe, where people from the Middle East, Asia and Sub -Saharan Africa converge at the borders after marathon stays that often include tours through war areas, dangerous maritime crossings and sub -ptic tripsinside sealed containers.

"There has always been the assumption that geography is an impediment to migration, that is no longer true," said Chris Ramón, immigration consultant in Washington."People are willing to undertake these really dangerous trips to reach the border".

Migrants who entered Panama during the first nine months of this year included 68,763 Haitians, including 12,087 children born in Chile and Brazil;12,870 Cubans;1,529 Venezuelans;942 Bangladesí;543 Senegalese;436 Ghanes;415 Uzbekos;294 Indians and 293 nepals.Approximately 1 in 5 people who crossed were children.

"We are here as tourists," said a young Nepalí with glasses that wandered for the necoclí boardwalk with a group of compatriots."I'm just visiting," he added, refusing to give his name.

Moraima Zamora, 57, from Havana, settled in a campaign house in what is known as the Cuban section of the beach.She hoped to meet her husband in Miami.After leaving the island, he had worked as a keys of keys and factory pede in the South American Nation of Guyana, sending money to his daughter and two grandchildren in Cuba.

"I will not wait here for a month to get a ticket to cross," said Zamora."My husband is going to send me some money, I will look for a boat and make things move forward.".

The prolonged delays to reach a ship have given rise to a risky clandestine business that transports migrants through turbulent waters.

Only this month, the bodies of three women, two from Haiti, one from Cuba, were found after a boat that illegally transported migrants overturned.Six others were missing and it is presumed that they drowned.

These dangers explain why many prefer to wait in necoclí.

"We have heard that the United States is a place where you can be free, you can raise your family and expect your children to advance, study at the university," said a man from Sierra Leone while approaching a legal vessel.

One of a group of 14 Africans who had flown to Brazil and then traveled here by land, mentioned that he was 35 years old and would only give his first name: Osman.

"We want freedom," he emphasized.

From Acandí, the motorcycle or horse trip takes migrants through muddy roads, passing through the cattle grazing, crossing streams and rivers, going up and down hills, as well as crossing sections of dense forest before the entrance point to the Darién.From there, it is a suffocating walk of two to seven days through the mountains to Panama.

The lucky ones to have some cash can hire guides to help at least during part of the march.

Makenson Dutreil, 35, who indicated that he was heading to New York, was among the half dozen Haitians, including a 5 -year -old girl with plastic sunglasses decorated with bars and stars, which embarked on the last pushTowards the Darién, on top of a couple of carriages thrown by horses.

They stopped to eat rice and chicken in a position by the river under the direction of Absalón Álvarez, 46, an intrepid entrepreneur who also built a toll bridge with tables from a CEIBA and began to collect each motorcycle, as well as toEach car, about 55 cents for crossing the dry acandí river.

Refreshing, Dutreil and others were optimistic.

"At least we are moving again," Dutreil said as his group advanced towards the jungle.

This article contributed the special correspondents Liliana Nieto del Río and Juan Carlos Zapata in Necoclí and Acandí, Colombia, as well as Cecilia Sánchez in Mexico City.

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