The New York Times has a story about one of the longest and most perilous routes people are desperately taking to get to America. The journey is illustrated with the map below:
That’s a pretty crazy looking journey albeit to get to a better quality of life from the one you’re leaving.
The final stretch of the journey to get into the United States is also the most dangerous, involving a passage through the Darién Gap. The article contains this section:
Now, hundreds of Afghans are risking it every month, officials say, part of a historic crush of people pouring through the Darién, the only way from South America to the United States by land.
The Darién is a roadless, mountainous tangle, considered a last resort for decades, with notorious hardships: rivers that sweep away bodies, hills that cause heart attacks, mud that nearly swallows children, bandits who rob, kidnap, assault and kill.
But with the economic and political havoc of recent years, including the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, interest in the Darién has exploded — along with relentless advertising on TikTok, Facebook and WhatsApp by smugglers and migrants alike, sometimes presenting the route like a family outing that almost anyone can manage.
“Safe. 100 percent trustworthy. Special packages with transport, lodging and food,” reads one Facebook post showing people holding hands as they stroll toward a fluttering American flag. “Guaranteed.”
Fewer than 11,000 people crossed the jungle each year, on average, from 2010 to 2020. But this year, officials say, as many as 400,000 are expected to make the journey, nearly all of them headed to the United States.
And while most are from Venezuela, Haiti and Ecuador, the route has increasingly become a United Nations of migration, with a growing number from China, India, Nigeria, Somalia and elsewhere.
As I’ve written before, one way to appreciate how populous Nigeria is, is to look at the number of Nigerians who show up in migrant numbers anywhere in the world.
I’m not sure how they get there but Nigerians are showing up in a migrant camp on the furthest side of the United States from Nigeria.
Addendum: The LA Times spoke to one of the Nigerians in the camp:
Mary Otaiyi, 33, of Nigeria, carried her sleeping 4-year-old on her back while holding her 10-year-old’s hand. She said they had flown to Brazil, then walked and bused through Bolivia, Peru and onward into Mexico, taking a month to get to America.
”I came for a good life for my kids,” she said. “I have no relatives here and no job in Nigeria.”