Panama deports 29 Colombians on first US-funded flight

Panama deported 29 Colombians on Tuesday on a flight that the government said was the first paid for by the United States under an agreement the two countries signed in July.

The Colombians had entered Panama illegally through the Darien jungle, a path used by more than 500,000 migrants headed north last year. The vast majority of those were Venezuelans.

But at least for now, Panama is not able to deport Venezuelans because the relationship between the countries has turned tense since Panama - like most other countries in the region -- has refused to recognize the results of Venezuela's election giving President Nicolas Maduro another term. The two countries have suspended their diplomatic relations.

It is the first deportation flight since the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in early July to try to contain the incessant irregular migration to the United States through that inhospitable area on the border with Colombia. More than half a million migrants followed that route last year, most of them Venezuelans, followed by Ecuadorians, Colombians and Chinese, among other nationalities.

Panama President José Raúl Mulino, who took office July 1, pledged to stop that migration flow, an interest he shares with the U.S. government.

Mulino had originally said the flights would be "voluntary" repatriations, but those deported Tuesday had criminal records, officials said.

Roger Mojico, director of Panama's National Immigration Service, told reporters Tuesday that Panama is speaking with other countries such as Ecuador and India about coordinating repatriation flights.

"The issue of Venezuela has a particularity because of the diplomatic restrictions, now it prevents us from making any kind of movement to Venezuela.... in the end we could endanger those people we would be returning and that would violate the norms of international law", the director of the National Migration Service, Roger Mojica, told reporters.

The flight that took the Colombian migrants back departed around 6 a.m. for the Rionegro airport in Medellín. Beforehand, the repatriated, with their hands and feet in chains, were lined up on the tarmac.

All of the deportees have criminal records in Colombia, including one whom authorities identified through biometric tests as a suspected hitman for the Clan del Golfo, the powerful Colombian drug trafficking organization that is also accused of leading the illicit human trafficking business along that route.

The alleged Gulf Clan member was arrested by Colombian police after arriving at the airport, according to images released by Migración Colombia. Authorities did not give details of his identity or his rank within the cartel when contacted by the AP.

Panama has carried out similar deportation flights before, but this is the first one paid for by the United States and under the agreement with Washington.

Mojica, the migration official, said that coordination and approaches are being made with other countries of origin of irregular migrants, such as Ecuador and India, to arrange repatriation flights.

The deportation of migrants was described as "routine" by Migración Colombia, which indicated in a statement that it is a procedure that is part of the bilateral agreements between Colombia and Panama.

"These flights have been attended since 2016 and bring only Colombian citizens, and since 2023 the number of nationals received has increased," the Colombian migration authority said in a statement.

According to Migración Colombia, 121 Colombians were deported by 2022, in 2023 a total of 378 and so far in 2024, 365 Colombians have been deported.

President Mulino's government also closed with barbed wire some entry points through the Darien jungle and established what it calls a corridor for the supposedly safer passage of migrants, which according to authorities has decreased transits since July.

So far this year more than 230,000 migrants have crossed the Darien, more than 60% of them Venezuelans. And in August, 8,000 had already crossed, 30% less than in the same period last year, said Mojica.

The Panamanian government has warned, however, that the post-electoral crisis in Venezuela could cause a new migratory exodus.

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Suárez reported from Bogotá.