Costa Rica and Panama coordinate to move southbound migrants

PEÑAS BLANCAS, Costa Rica (AP) - Costa Rica and Panama are coordinating to expedite southbound migrant transit through their countries along the same route that carried hundreds of thousands north in recent years, officials said Monday.

Both countries have struggled to find their footing in recent weeks in the new reality of migrants heading south, turned back by the closure of the United States border to asylum seekers since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January.

The security ministers from both countries met Monday in Peñas Blancas, a border post between Nicaragua and Costa Rica where southbound migrants will board buses to a Costa Rican government facility at the Panama border.

From there Panama will bus them to its Darien province, which borders Colombia.

Costa Rican Security Minister Mario Zamora said that the effort will focus on Colombians, Venezuelans and Ecuadorians who are trying to reach their countries. He said that by organizing the transportation they hope to protect migrants from human traffickers.

His Panamanian counterpart, Frank Abrego, said the idea is to offer a more regulated transit across Costa Rica and Panama.

On Monday, small groups of migrants carrying backpacks crossed the Nicaraguan border into Costa Rica, cleared immigration, and boarded southbound buses.

Last week, southbound migrants boarded boats in a Panamanian port on the Caribbean sea to be carried to the Panama-Colombian border where they could continue south and avoid a treacherous land crossing of the Darien Gap.

Venezuelan Bárbara Somayor stopped to buy her bus ticket at the border post.

"I think it would be better if they offered us air transportation, because boats pose a risk for both adults and children," she said. "But, well, one has to take the risk."

Some southbound migrants in recent weeks had complained of being stopped by authorities in both countries as they tried to make their own way.

The reversed migration comes at the same time that Panama and Costa Rica agreed to receive several hundred migrants, largely from Asian nations, deported by the United States. While some agreed to return to their country of origin, others have been detained while the host nations and humanitarian organizations try to figure out what to do with them.

Some are being held in a camp in Panama's Darien that previously had received northbound migrants. Those held there now complain of harsh conditions, lack of information and no access to legal counsel.

On Saturday, a group of lawyers filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights requesting protective measures to safeguard detained migrants' rights.