{"id":161645,"date":"2023-06-30T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=920634"},"modified":"2023-06-30T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T00:00:00","slug":"german-travel-agency-criticized-for-tour-of-panamas-deadly-jungle-migrant-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/06\/30\/german-travel-agency-criticized-for-tour-of-panamas-deadly-jungle-migrant-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"German travel agency criticized for tour of Panama\u2019s deadly jungle migrant zone"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

\u201cWe go where no one goes,\u201d is Wandermut\u2019s tagline, but one of the German tour agency\u2019s packages has left people asking whether some places are better left unexplored.
\nThe travel startup\u2019s 10-day Panama Jungle Tour has been criticised across Latin America in recent weeks for offering tour packages in a region which is home to one of the world\u2019s most dangerous migration routes.
\nThe agency markets its trek through the Dari\u00e9n Gap as a chance to see the unique natural beauties of one of the world\u2019s most pristine tropical forests \u2013 and the ultimate survival test for the intrepid.
\n\u201cReaching our destination and the course of the entire tour are uncertain,\u201d Wandermut says in its edgy promotional material.
\nThe Dari\u00e9n, a 100-mile swath of jungle between Colombia and Panama, is home to incredible natural beauty, including cascading waterfalls, myriad endemic species and crystal-clear streams.
\nBut its inaccessibility and lack of development have also turned it into a haven for drug trafficking militias, armed bandits and one of the world\u2019s most desperate migrant crossings.
\nTourism in any part of the Dari\u00e9n is reckless due to the treacherous terrain, lack of state presence and pervasive organised crime, said Giuseppe Loprete, the International Organization for Migration\u2019s chief of mission in Panama.
\nA mud footpath is seen in the Dari\u00e9n jungle near the Colombia and Panama border. Photograph: Rafal Cichawa\/Alamy
\n\u201cThe Dari\u00e9n jungle is a notoriously remote region of swampland and dense rainforest spanning 100km of the border between Colombia and Panama. There are no roads, the access is very dangerous for border authorities and even more so for humanitarian actors. Even fully equipped and trained border authorities such as Panama\u2019s national border service \u2026 can access the Dari\u00e9n jungle [only] to a certain point, just on the Panama side,\u201d Loprete said.
\n\u201cToday, while you read this, there are privileged people from the first world travelling to Colombia to an area full of migrant corpses to live out an adventure in the jungle. If that does not make you want to vomit, I don\u2019t know what will,\u201d commented one Twitter user.
\nA record 250,000 migrants \u2013 mostly Latin Americans but also a growing number of people from as far afield as Afghanistan and China \u2013 took the 10-day trek through the Dari\u00e9n in 2022 in the hopes of eventually making their way to the US.
\nAs the number of people fleeing economic strife and persecution has increased the migrants making the trek are increasingly poorly equipped and weak, say medical NGOs tending to sick people who emerge from the jungle in Panama.
\nDoctors without Borders (MSF) says it is seeing a growing number of families with small children, malnourished and diabetics who are at higher risk of being lost to the mountainous jungle.
\nHaitian migrants wade through water as they cross the Dari\u00e9n Gap in hopes of reaching the US in May. Photograph: Iva\u0301n Valencia\/AP
\nAt least 36 people did not survive the crossing in 2022 \u2013 though that number is a \u201csmall fraction\u201d of the number of lives lost as many of the bodies were left to decay in the lawless jungle, according to the International Organization for Migration.
\nWandermut told the Guardian that it has learned of the plight of migrants in the Dari\u00e9n since it began offering its tours there in recent years and that it takes its European clients through the Pacific side of the Dari\u00e9n, not the Caribbean side which is more trodden by migrants.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t holiday where people suffer,\u201d the travel startup\u2019s founders, Tom Schinker and Martin Druschel, told the Guardian in a statement.
\nPanama\u2019s tourist authority defended the tours, saying there was no connection between \u201clegitimate tourism operations in southern Dari\u00e9n [and] the catastrophic humanitarian crisis that is migration through the northern part of Dari\u00e9n territory\u201d.
\n\u201cThese two activities take place in completely different areas of the Dari\u00e9n, separated by more than 55 miles of tropical forests and tribal territories,\u201d the agency said. It also said that local communities in Dari\u00e9n \u201cbenefit greatly from tourism by connecting with visitors on a personal level and offering their services, such as lodging, guiding and canoe transportation\u201d.
\nBut even if tourists steer away from migrant trails, marketing the dangers of the Dari\u00e9n is in bad taste, MSF said.
\nWhile migrants pay a couple of hundred dollars to coyotes for passage and trek, sometimes shoeless, with no more than the bag on their backs, holidaymakers on the \u201csurvival tour\u201d pay \u20ac3,500 ($3,800) to cross with the luxury of satellite phones, local guides \u2013 and the option of an emergency airlift if necessary.
\n\u201cMigrants do not have any of this equipment, they often get severe diarrhoea from the rivers as they cannot afford drinking water,\u201d Luis Eguiluz, head of MSF\u2019s mission in Colombia and Panama told the Guardian. \u201cAny initiative that trivialises the suffering of migrants is unacceptable. We need to show the public the suffering of these people, not make light of it.\u201d
\nAlong with natural perils such as wild animals and fast-flowing rivers, migrants often fall prey to the drug cartels who have become a growing threat, lining their routes with land mines to protect their increasingly lucrative racket.
\nVenezuelan migrants arrive at Canaan Membrillo village, the first border control of the Dari\u00e9n province in Panama, in October 2022. Photograph: Luis Acosta\/AFP\/Getty Images
\nMigrants are frequently robbed, women raped and young children have been shot dead by armed bandits.
\nWandermut says its tours are safe due to the experience of its guides and that informs Panamanian border officials of its activities.
\n\u201cOur most important guide, has not had any problems with smugglers or other criminals due to his contacts and experience over the past 20 years,\u201d the business says.
\nThough the company \u201ccannot rule out every risk\u201d the company\u2019s founders said, \u201cso far there has not been a critical incident\u201d.
\nA number of travel agencies, including in the UK, appear to offer similar tours through the Dari\u00e9n though it appeared that most have ceased offering tours or have little demand since the humanitarian crisis in the Dari\u00e9n accelerated in 2020.
\nOfficials at civil society groups familiar with the Dari\u00e9n have raised concerns that the tour agencies could be paying armed groups for access to their tourist routes, lining the pockets of criminal organisations and perpetuating the migrant crisis in the Dari\u00e9n.
\nWandermut did not respond to comment on whether it paid any criminal organisations for passage.<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe go where no one goes,\u201d is Wandermut\u2019s tagline, but one of the German tour agency\u2019s packages has left people asking whether some places are better left unexplored.
\nThe travel startup\u2019s 10-day Panama Jungle Tour has been criticised across Latin Amer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[144,586,194,465,940,120,1242,484,1367],"tags":[10401,2210,10352,10557,10315,10344,10327,3402,10462],"class_list":["post-161645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-economy","category-news-chinese-law","category-social-media","category-tourism","category-travel","category-twitter","category-united-states","category-usa","tag-afghanistan","tag-america","tag-european","tag-latin-america","tag-media-intelligence","tag-outer-space","tag-pacific","tag-united-kingdom","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161648,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161645\/revisions\/161648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}