
Panama to launch deportation flights to China and India, as well as regional neighbors
CNN
Panama will deport over 100 people from China, India, Ecuador and Colombia, in a widening crackdown on the number of migrants traveling north through Central America, President Jose Mulino announced on Thursday.
Panama will deport over 100 people from China, India, Ecuador and Colombia, in a widening crackdown on the number of migrants traveling north through Central America, President Jose Mulino announced on Thursday. The deportation flights are part of Panama’s partnership with the US that aims to discourage irregular migration northward – a growing phenomenon in recent years. Panama plans to send 70 people to India on September 3, and an unspecified number of Chinese migrants, Mulino said without providing details. Flights carrying dozens of Ecuadorians and Colombians will also depart in the coming days, he said, noting that Ecuadorians represent the second-largest group of migrants in the region, after Venezuelans. Twenty-nine Colombians were already sent back on an earlier flight under the same program. A growing number of US-bound migrants have been crossing into Panama from the Darién Gap, a treacherous rainforest region connecting South and Central America. The Biden administration has been trying to push migrants back from the US southern border by setting up processing centers in Latin America and encouraging neighboring nations to step up border enforcement measures.

The alleged drug traffickers killed by the US military in a strike on September 2 were heading to link up with another, larger vessel that was bound for Suriname — a small South American country east of Venezuela – the admiral who oversaw the operation told lawmakers on Thursday according to two sources with direct knowledge of his remarks.

The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.











