Bus Carrying Migrants Crashes in Panama

A bus carrying 40 irregular migrants suffered an accident on the Inter-American Highway in Panama on Wednesday, leaving 17 injured, one “seriously,” the Ministry of Health of the Central American country reported. 

The accident occurred early this morning on the Inter-American Highway, the highway that crosses the entire country and connects it with the rest of Central America, near Los Ruices, in the province of Veraguas, in western Panama, when the vehicle collided with the base of a pedestrian bridge.  Panama’s Ministry of Health said in a statement that 17 of the passengers were taken to a public hospital in Veraguas, one of whom was “seriously injured.”   

The group of 17 people treated at the Luis ‘Chicho’ Fábrega hospital in Veraguas includes four minors, aged 4, 11, 2 and 10, who were in stable condition, the health ministry said.  In February 2023, a total of 37 irregular migrants died and 27 survived when a bus that was transporting them to the border with neighboring Costa Rica to continue their journey to North America overturned, in what has been one of the deadliest traffic accidents recorded in the history of the Central American country. 

Panama is one of several countries that thousands of migrants cross every day in America on their irregular journey to the north of the continent in search of a better life, which has generated a humanitarian crisis in the region.  Amid this flow, which in 2023 reached an unprecedented figure of more than 520,000 people arriving in Panama after crossing the dangerous Darien jungle, its border with Colombia, other traffic accidents have been recorded involving migrants.