Panama’s next president meets migrants at the Darien Gap, promises to shut down the perilous route

Panama’s president-elect José Raúl Mulino is visiting the jungle province of Darien, where he was to face one of his biggest challenges: controlling the world’s busiest migration route from South America bound for the United States. The 65-year-old lawyer, who will take the reins of Panama on Monday, promised during his campaign to shut down the Darien Gap, calling the daily crossings “an odyssey that does not have a reason to exist.” More than half a million people crossed the migration corridor on the border with Colombia last year and it is estimated that some 186,000 people have crossed so far in 2024.