One of the Most Dangerous Treks in the World is Now Even Worse

There’s been a shocking increase in sexualized violence.

Fearless reporting, a behind-the-curtains look at how journalism is made — and an unabashed point of view. Welcome to Chills.

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Migrants walk by the jungle near Bajo Chiquito village, the first border control of the Darien Province in Panama, in September 2023. (Photo by Luis ACOSTA / AFP) (Photo by LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images)

Dusk was descending through the rainforest when the Cameroonians and Pakistanis stumbled into the campsite. They were in their 20s and 30s and loaded down with knapsacks, tents, and shoulder bags. Mud covered their rubber boots. They looked dazed, trying to make out who was occupying the small clearing that had just opened up in front of them.

The site was not much to speak of, a patch of dirt dotted with stumps and discarded pieces of tent fabric. Several men lay in hammocks that hung between slender trees. The one extravagance was a kitchen, shaded by a tarp and consisting of a rough wooden table, a couple of open fire pits, and some blackened pots that rested on rocks.

The four Pakistani men, the first to arrive, were breathing hard. Most of the Cameroonians — there were 18 in all — made straight for a nearby river, their plastic passport holders dangling in the water as they doused their faces. Some stripped off their clothes and washed themselves. A woman named Sandra stood motionless, in obvious pain. Twenty-three years old, she was one of the youngest in the group. Tight ringlets, their ends a rusty blond from old highlights, framed her face. Wrenching off her knapsack, she sat down on a log and hugged her knees. She was worried about her friend Benita, who had twisted her knee the day before and had been struggling. When Benita limped in, leaning heavily on a thick branch, Sandra looked up. “How many more days?” she asked to no one in particular. 

I first heard about the mountainous, roughly 60-mile Darien Gap, one of the world’s most dangerous migrant routes, in the excellent article I’ve quoted above. Published by The California Sunday Magazine, the story won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021. The writer, Nadja Drost, documented the frightening journey of migrants who take their lives in their hands in order to cross the stretch of jungle that traverses the Colombia-Panama border in order to get to the United States. As the only land that connects South America to Central America, the gap is home to indigenous groups — and marauding criminals.

And now, the path has drastically increased in danger, especially for girls and women. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said this week that there was a sevenfold uptick in sexualized violence along the route in December 2023 as compared with the previous months.