[LINK] "Drugs, migrants and rebels: Life along Darién's Gap"

[rfmcdonald]

Al Jazeera's Joe Jackson describes how the theoretically impassable border between Panama and Colombia has become a major crossing ground of all kinds, all the more unregulatable because of its historical impassability.

[The Panama-Colombia border is] one of the only international frontiers without a pliable road across it. The 225km boundary, stretching from the Caribbean coast through dense mountainous jungle and swamps to the Pacific Ocean, has no formal crossings for people or cargo.

Foreigners require prior permission from Senafront - Panama's border police - to access the neighbouring province of Darién, and any visitor must navigate numerous security checkpoints heading in and out.

People still traverse the frontier: smugglers, paramilitaries, undocumented migrants, as well as indigenous people who call the region home. Its remote nature and chronic insecurity suits many of their needs.

Increasing numbers of undocumented migrants, from as far away as South Asia and Africa, are traversing through the region. They arrive in South American countries and risk their lives on this perilous path, invariably headed to the United States.

The movement of drugs, rebels, and North America-bound migrants is stretching the resources of Darién - and residents' patience.

"The people are trying to build a wall against these pressures," said Ivan Lay, 64, the provincial director in Panama's interior ministry, through a translator. "But the avalanche is powerful."