A boat carrying migrants sank off the coast of Panama, in the Caribbean Sea. According to the border guard, the number of dead and missing is still undetermined.

The same source said that in a coastal area, near the city of Darien, rescue crews were sent as there were reports of locating lifeless bodies of migrants washed up there. The area in question is an extremely inhospitable and dangerous jungle, on the border of Panama and Colombia, through which hundreds of thousands of migrants cross in their attempt to reach the US every year.

“At the moment, we have no information about survivors” or about the nationality of the victims, a representative of the national border service (SENAFRONT) told AFP.

“We don’t know how many people were on the boat” that sank, the spokeswoman added.

The waters where the shipwreck took place are considered dangerous, due to the waves, currents and winds, the spokeswoman also pointed out.

The Panamanian television network TVN reported via X (the former Twitter) that there were “25 people” on the boat, of which “4 are dead” and another 14 went ashore, but this version has not been officially confirmed by the authorities, at least until now. According to information from the same and another network, Telemetro, at least seven people are missing.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants, mostly from South American countries, especially Venezuela, pass through Panama during the perilous journey north to the US border. For the most part, they cross the Darien jungle on foot.

2023 ended with more than 520,000 migrants passing through the Darien jungle, according to data from the Central American country’s Ministry of Security. Some 328,000 were Venezuelan nationals.

Last year, 40 migrants were killed and 20 others injured when a bus carrying them from the edge of the Darien jungle to Panama’s border with Costa Rica went off the road. The driver, a Panamanian national, was among the dead.