The group of unauthorized migrants, which includes children, were bused to the camp late Tuesday night. “It looks like a zoo, there are fenced cages,” said one of the detainees.
Julie TurkewitzFarnaz FassihiHamed Aleaziz and Annie Correal
Julie Turkewitz reported from Bogotá, Colombia, Farnaz Fassihi from New York, Hamed Aleaziz from Washington and Annie Correal from Mexico City.
Nearly 100 migrants, recently deported by the United States to Panama where they had been locked in a hotel, were loaded onto buses Tuesday night and moved to a detention camp on the outskirts of the jungle, several of the migrants said.
It is unclear how long the group, which was deported under the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to expel unauthorized migrants, will be detained at the jungle camp.
Conditions at the site are primitive, the detainees said. Diseases, including dengue are endemic to the region, and the government has denied access to journalists and aid organizations.
“It looks like a zoo, there are fenced cages,” said one deportee, Artemis Ghasemzadeh, a 27-year-old migrant from Iran, after arriving at the camp following a four-hour drive from Panama City. “They gave us a stale piece of bread. We are sitting on the floor.”
The group includes eight children, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak on the record. Lawyers have said it is illegal to detain people in Panama for more than 24 hours without a court order.
The Panamanian government has not made an official announcement about the transfer to the jungle camp.
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