The road in the world is disrupted by a vast area of swamps, mountains and rivers – reported to be “one of the most dangerous places” on the planet.
A 99-mile stretch of land, The Darién Gap, is impossible to develop and has no formal roads or infrastructure, with the road from north to south America, the Pan American Highway, formally disrupted by this large expanse of land.
The Darién Gap is part of the narrow isthmus between North America and South America, along the Colombia-Panama border.
With no formal roads or infrastructure – just an almost impenetrable tangle of rainforests, swamps, mountains, and rivers – it is one of the most inhospitable areas on the planet.
This relatively small break in the 19,000 Pan-American Highway is also the only land route for migrants from South America who are desperately seeking a better life in the United States. Nearly all of them must find a way through this deadly bottleneck.
Plans to build a highway through the Darién Gap – and connect both ends of the Pan-American Highway – were abandoned in the 1970s due to environmental and health concerns.
It presents many logistical challenges for roadbuilders due to the harsh tropical climate, poisonous insects, venomous snakes and man-eating crocodiles.
Infrastructure development has also been constrained by financial costs – and there is no active plan to build a highway through the region. It is largely considered as being impossible to develop for the various reasons outlined above.
However, A record 520,000 people crossed the Darién Gap in 2023 – more than double the number reported the year before- according to new figures from the government of Panama. The majority of these people were migrants from Venezuela, Ecuador and Haiti.
However, migrants attempting to traverse this dangerous area come from all over the world. Other migrants come from Angola, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, Afghanistan, and Nepal.
And the number of children in transit is growing five times faster than the number of adults. Nearly 2,000 of the 30,000 children who passed through the Darién Gap in 2023 were unaccompanied or separated from their families.
In 2023, the Missing Migrant Project reported 141 known deaths in the Darién Gap – but this is likely only a fraction of the actual number. As well as natural dangers, migrants also face violence from criminal groups.
The government has erected fences to funnel people through a single route – but this journey is still dangerous and migrants risk death. And yet so many attempt the crossing that rivers reportedly have become contaminated with faeces – and corpses.
The expedition was led by Col. John Blashford-Snell CBE, one of Britain’s most famous modern-day explorers. It was part of a larger Pan-American trip that was scheduled to last six months – with half of that time allocated to getting through the Darien gap.
