Hundreds of irregular migrants, mostly Haitians and Cubans, are blocked in Turbo, a border community of Colombia bordering Panama. According to local estimates 3% are children, 23% of women and 74% men.

These transit migrants in an irregular situation, whose number varies daily, face great difficulties to survive, housed in a makeshift place, some sick most suffering from hunger.

The Haitian nationals have generally fled the political situation and unemployment in Brazil to try to win the United States to obtain better living conditions. But have got stuck in their journey, following the recent decision of the President of Panama Juan Carlos Varela to close the border between his country and Colombia.

Disturbing reports indicate that migrants cross borders of Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil, through roads increasingly complex and dangerous as the territories in war of the two Colombian departments of Chocó and Antioquia. Others use other channels, no less perilous, to reach their destination, including via the coast and the Darien forest in order to continue their route to Central America and then to the United States.

TB/ HaitiLibre