From boom to bust in the Darien Gap

The Star

16-05-2025

THE face of US President Donald Trump flashes on the flat screen TV that Luis Olea bought with the money he earned ferrying migrants through the remote Panamanian jungle during an unprecedented crush of migration.
The Darien Gap, a stretch of nearly impenetrable rain forest along the border with Colombia, was transformed into a migratory highway in recent years as more than 1.2 million people from around the world travelled north toward the United States.
They brought an economic boom to areas that are hours, even days, from towns or mobile phone signal.
Migrants paid for boat rides, clothing, meals and water after gruelling and often deadly treks.
With that burst of wealth, many in towns like Olea's Villa Caleta, in the Comarca indigenous lands, abandoned their banana and rice crops to carry migrants down the winding rivers.
A file photo of the riverbank where hundreds of migrants used to disembark daily, after crossing the Darien Gap on their journey north to the United States. — AP
Olea installed electricity in his one-room wooden home in the heart of the jungle.
Families invested in children's education. People built homes and more hopeful lives.
Then the money vanished.
After Trump took office in January and slashed access to asylum in the United States, migration through the Darien Gap virtually disappeared. The new economy bottomed out, and residents newly dependent on it scrambled for options.
'Before, we lived off of the migration,' 63-year-old Olea said. 'But now that's all gone.'
Migration through the Darien Gap soared around 2021 as people fleeing economic crises, war and repressive governments increasingly braved the days-long journey.
While criminal groups raked in money controlling migratory routes and extorting vulnerable people, the mass movement also injected cash into historically underdeveloped regions, said Manuel Orozco, director of the migration, remittances and development programme at the Inter-American Dialogue.
'It became a business opportunity for a lot of people,' Orozco said. 'It's like you've discovered a gold mine, but once it dries up ... you either leave the area and go to the city or stay living in poverty.'
Olea, like many of the Comarca, once survived by growing bananas in the jungle next to Villa Caleta, near the Turquesa river flowing near the border with Colombia.
When migrants began to move through the region, he and others invested in boats to pick up people in the town of Bajo Chiquito, where migrants arrived after their brutal trek.
The boat pilots, known as lancheros, would transport migrants to a port, Lajas Blancas, where they would take buses north.
Pilots like Olea would earn up to US$300 a day, far above the US$150 a month many had made from crops.
The work grew so lucrative that towns along the river struck a deal to take turns transporting migrants, so each community would have their share.
Olea installed solar panels on his tin roof. He elevated his house to protect belongings from floods, and bought a water pump and a television.
He now watches Trump talk about tariffs on CNN en Espanol.
The money connected him, and Darien communities, to the world in a way that had not existed before.
While some residents saved their cash, many more were left reeling from the abrupt drop in migration, said Cholino de Gracia, a community leader.
'The worst part is that some people struggle to eat, because without any income and no supermarkets here, what can people buy?' de Gracia said.
Olea has started growing bananas again, but said it will take at least nine months to yield anything.
He could sell his boat, which now sits unused, but conceded: 'Who's going to buy it? There's no market anymore.'
Pedro Chami, 56, another former boat pilot, gave up on his crops.
Now he sits outside his home carving wooden pans. He hopes to try his luck sifting through river sand for flecks of gold.
'I'm trying this to see if things get better, see if I can buy some food,' Chami said. 'Before, I would always have my US$200 a day without fail. Now, I don't even have a cent.'
At the height of the migration, Panamanian authorities estimated that between 2,500 and 3,000 people crossed the Darien Gap every day. Now, they estimate around 10 cross weekly.
Many more migrants, mainly Venezuelans, have started to travel south along Panama's Caribbean coast in a 'reverse flow' back home.
The Gulf Clan, the criminal group that profited from the northward migration, now scouts the coast to see if it can make money off migrants going the other way, said Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst for International Crisis Group.
Lajas Blancas, the river port where boats dropped off migrants after their jungle journey, has been transformed.
It once bustled with crowds browsing stalls selling food, SIM cards, blankets and access to power banks for charging phones.
Now the port and makeshift migrant camp are a ghost town, lined with signs advertising 'American clothes' written in red, white and blue.
Zobeida Concepcion's family, living on their land, is one of three that haven't abandoned Lajas Blancas.
The 55-year-old said most who sold goods to migrants have packed up and headed to Panama City to look for work.
'When Donald Trump won, everything came to a screeching halt,' she said.
Concepcion's family sold water, soda and snacks and even temporarily opened a restaurant.
With the earnings, she bought a new bed, washing machine, refrigerator and three big freezers to store goods sold to migrants.
She started to build a house with her husband.
She said she's unsure what to do next, but has some savings. She'll keep the freezers, too.
'I'm going to save them for whatever comes,' she said, with future US administrations in mind. 'When another government enters, you never know what opportunities there will be.' — AP