The plane with 303 Indian passengers that was detained in France and was bound for Nicaragua highlighted the new route of African and Asian migrants through Central America, on their way to the United States, to avoid the dangerous Panamanian jungle of El Darién.
The Airbus A340 of the Romanian airline Legend Airlines, which was flying from Dubai (United Arab Emirates), was immobilized on December 21 during a stopover in Vatry (France), following a complaint of alleged human trafficking.
Manuel Orozco, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue -based in Washington-, said that Daniel Ortega’s government has facilitated “the business of an air services network” so that migrants “can reach the border with Mexico and the United States faster,” using Nicaragua as a shortcut or “bridge.”
“In April, the government hired private companies in Dubai to train civil aviation officials in handling passenger immigration procedures on charter flights,” and between June and November there were “more than 500” of these flights from several countries, he said.
Nicaragua “took advantage of the opportunity to facilitate the passage of foreigners from India from Dubai on three occasions,” added Orozco, a Nicaraguan expert on migration.
After four days stranded, the A340 was redirected to Mumbai (India) with 276 passengers (25 requested asylum and two remained under interrogation). The Indian police are investigating the claim that they paid tens of thousands of dollars to smugglers to help them get to the United States.
Premeditated
Nicaragua, which considers Washington its “enemy”, has been a “springboard” for Cubans and Haitians, who since 2021 have not required a visa: an average of 50 charter flights per month traveled from Havana to Managua between January and October, and those flights from Port-au-Prince rose from 30 in August to 130 in October, according to Orozco.
“For Nicaragua, the air route to Managua was conceived in a premeditated way in front of the opportunity to increase the weight of the migration crisis in the United States and, at the same time, capture income from the business” through the collection of visa fees, tourism permits and landing taxes, he added.
Legend Airlines lawyer Liliana Bakayoko said that Nicaragua approved the passenger list before they boarded the flight and that they would receive their entry pass at Managua airport.
Every foreigner who wants to travel to Nicaragua must request prior entry permission. “Without the approval of the Nicaraguan immigration authorities of the passenger list, the plane could not land in Managua or take off from Dubai,” she said.
Avoiding “hell”
Cubans, Haitians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Africans have joined in recent years the wave of Venezuelans crossing the Darién Gap bordering Colombia, where they are exposed to sexual abuse, kidnappings and robberies by criminal gangs, and the harsh weather of a jungle considered the “hell” of migrants.
According to the Panamanian government, more than half a million migrants passed through there this year – twice as many as in 2022 – but the International Organization for Migration (IOM) sees a “significant trend” of Cubans and Africans choosing “air routes to reach Central America, avoiding the Darién”.
Instead, the flow of Asian and African migrants (Guinea, China, Senegal, India, Afghanistan, Angola and others), entering mainly through Honduras through its border with Nicaragua, quintupled from 14,569 in 2022 to 76,178 in 2023 (+522%), according to the Migration Institute.
From Managua’s air gateway, migrants travel by land to Honduras and Guatemala, where they pass without official charge, and then to Mexico and the United States, paying thousands of dollars to human traffickers or “coyotes”.
Connection to El Salvador
By commercial flight, a frequent route is to make a stopover in El Salvador, an important Central American air connection hub, as is Panama.
As Costa Rica and Panama did with Cubans connecting to Managua, El Salvador imposed in October on citizens from Africa and India an airport transit fee of $1,130.
Most “are headed to Nicaragua,” a spokesperson for the Salvadoran Immigration Department confirmed to AFP.
Colombian authorities recently noted that a majority of passengers on flights from Turkey were Africans in transit to San Salvador – with direct flights from Bogotá – to continue to Managua.
It is a population “(…) that intends to migrate” and “pays for tickets and everything else to avoid going through the Darién,” Vice Chancellor Francisco Coy explained this week, amid congestion of Africans at Bogotá airport, where two lone children from Guinea were found, further raising alarms.
For its part, the Nicaraguan government remains silent on the entire matter.
