Colombia

More than 30,000 children have crossed the Darién Gap, the dense expanse of jungle straddling Panama and Colombia, in the first four months of this year.

According to figures released by the United Nations’ children’s agency, Unicef, the number of minors embarking on the dangerous journey is up 40% compared to last year.

Most of them are trying to reach the United States.

Migrants making the jungle crossing are often robbed or extorted by criminal gangs and many have been sexually abused.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) recorded 214 cases of sexual violence in the Darién jungle in the month of December alone.

The international medical organisation said migrants had described how they had been detained by armed men who had forced them to remove their clothes and sexually abused them.

While MSF said that most victims of sexual violence were women, its teams have also provided treatment to men and children.

Unicef deputy executive director Ted Chaiban said that many children had died “on this arduous, dangerous journey”.

There are no roads through the Darién Gap and crossing it on foot can take a week.

According to Unicef, 2,000 out of the more than 30,000 children who had embarked on the journey in the first four months of 2024 did so unaccompanied.

“The Darién Gap is no place for children,” Mr Chaiban said.

Unicef has helped migrant children, providing them with water, sanitation and hygiene as well as health services, but the organisation says it needs more funds to address their most urgent needs.

The large number of migrants through the Darién Gap has become a political issue in Panama, with President-elect José Raúl Mulino saying during his acceptance speech that he will “close” the route.

“This is not a transit route, no, this is our border,” said Mr Mulino, who will be sworn in in July. He did not clarify how he would block the route.

Colombia’s EMC rebel group has announced it will stop kidnapping people for ransom.

The EMC is the largest offshoot of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and is made up of rebels who refused to lay down their arms when the Farc signed a peace deal in 2016.

The announcement is a boost for the government of Gustavo Petro, which is engaged in peace talks with the EMC.

Ransom kidnappings have been on the rise in Colombia this year.

Among those seized – and later released – was the father of Liverpool footballer Luis Díaz.

The kidnapping of Mr Díaz Snr and his wife from their home town of Barrancas, in northern Colombia, shone a spotlight on the practice, which several criminal and rebel groups engage in to raise money.

While Tuesday’s announcement by the EMC is a victory for President Petro, who says he aims to achieve “total peace” in Colombia, kidnappings for ransom are likely to continue.

The National Liberation Army (ELN), the rebel group which seized Luis Díaz’s parents, is one of several criminal and rebel groups active in Colombia which have so far refused to stop abducting people for money.

The Ombudsman’s office said this week that 91 people were still being held hostage across the country.

According to a report released by Colombia’s Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation, the number of people kidnapped in the first 10 months of this year was the highest since 2016 – the year when the government signed a peace deal with the Farc.

The EMC – full name Estado Mayor Central (Spanish for Central General Command) – is the largest of the dissident rebel groups to have formed after the 2016 peace deal and has an estimated 3,000 members.

It is most active in the provinces of Caquetá, Guaviare, Meta and Putumayo.

Negotiations with the EMC have been rocky. In May, President Petro suspended a ceasefire with the rebel group after it had killed four indigenous teenagers who had tried to flee after being forcibly recruited by the group.

And it was not until last month that the two sides resumed peace talks.

The area planted with coca bushes in Colombia reached a record high last year, an annual report to the UN says.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that potential coca production had risen by 24% since 2021.

Coca leaves are the key ingredient in cocaine and Colombia has long been the top producer of the illegal drug.

The area planted with coca bushes rose by 13%, and the biggest increase was recorded in Colombia’s border areas.

Almost two-thirds of the coca crops are found in the provinces of Nariño and Putumayo, which border Ecuador, and in Norte de Santander, on the Venezuelan border.

There has been a 77% rise in in coca cultivation in Putumayo, which shares a border with Peru and Ecuador.

Candice Welsch, UNODC’s regional director, said that it was “worrying that each year there is an increase in coca crops in the country”.

Colombian Justice Minister Néstor Osuna said that his country was “flattening the curve” and that the rate of increase was much lower than in 2021.

The UNODC’s Leonardo Correa however warned that there had been a sharp rise in potential coca production in 2022.

“The crops that were young last year have now reached maturity and are now productive. In other words, the rate of growth in hectares is decreasing. But the rate of cocaine production is increasing,” he said.

Both the size of the area planted with coca in Colombia and the potential coca production are at their highest since the UN began monitoring in 2001.

Colombia is the top coca cultivator in the world, producing 60% of the world’s cocaine, followed by Peru and Bolivia.

President Gustavo Petro on Saturday appealed to his regional counterparts to turn away from a militarised approach to fighting drug use and instead see it as a public health issue.

“It is time to rebuild hope and not repeat the bloody and ferocious wars, the ill-named ‘war on drugs’, viewing drugs as a military problem and not as a health problem for society,” he said at the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Drugs in Cali.

His Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador said it was key to “fight first and foremost against poverty and inequality, and to offer work and good salaries”.

He said growers needed to be convinced “to switch from sowing marijuana, poppies and coca to planting beans, corn, cocoa and fruit trees”.

Mexico is the base for some of the most powerful transnational drug cartels that control trafficking routes from South America to the United States and Europe.

It also produces large amounts of heroin, cannabis, methamphetamine and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.

275 milioni di consumatori nel mondo nel 2016, vale a dire circa il 6% della popolazione mondiale, 31 di questi hanno subito gravi danni per la salute e 450.000 sono morti. Questi i dati sul consumo e gli effetti delle droghe secondo il  World Drug Report 2018, pubblicato a fine giugno, che non lasciano presagire niente di buono visto che, sempre secondo il report, nel 2017 la droga immessa sul mercato è aumentata del 65% rispetto all’anno precedente, pari a 10.500 tonnellate. Secondo la stima della UNODC, l’ufficio antidroga dell’Onu con sede a Vienna, si tratta del dato più alto mai registrato dall’inizio del 21esimo secolo.

A guidare questa assai poco confortante classifica due paesi, l’Afghanistan e la Colombia: nel pese asiatico la coltivazione di papavero da oppio ha aumentato dell’87% la sua produzione, arrivando alla cifra di 9.000 tonnellate di hascisc e oppioidi mentre nello stato sudamericano la produzione di cocaina è arrivata nel 2016 a toccare l’inquietante cifra di 866 tonnellate. Alla base di questa sovrapproduzione, secondo l’ufficio dell’ONU, l’instabilità politica, la mancanza di controllo del governo e le scarse opportunità di attività economiche di riconversione delle colture, che hanno reso la popolazione rurale vulnerabile all’influenza dei grandi gruppi del narcotraffico. Fiumi di droga, ovunque nel mondo, con conseguenze pesanti per la salute e la vita, un flusso inarrestabile che scorre tra l’indifferenza o l’impotenza dei governi: quelli dei paesi produttori che non riescono ad arginare l’elevata produzione, quelli europei che assistono alla saturazione del mercato, quelli degli stati africani e asiatici in cui lo smercio trova il suo nuovo sbocco.  Un mercato senza regole, difficile da controllare e che fa girare enormi quantità di denaro.

Ciò che però sta destando più preoccupazioni è la larga diffusione di nuovi oppioidi dalle caratteristiche devastanti, come il Fentanyl, dalle “proprietà” spaventose, che arriva dal narcotraffico. E’ un farmaco che si dovrebbe usare in medicina solo quando il paziente è intubato ma dai dati del World Drug Report 2018 il Fentanyl ha già provocato, nel solo 2016, 60mila morti. Più di quanti sono stati i caduti nella guerra del Vietnam, come si sottolinea nel report. L’uso del Fentanyl in maniera così massiccia e improvvisa ha costretto le autorità statunitensi a iniziare a prendere coscienza del nuovo fenomeno che colpisce principalmente la classe media. Alle gravi conseguenze, infatti, si deve aggiungere la mancanza di assicurazione medica, non prevista, per questo oppioide che rischia di rendere impossibili le cure per chi ne è vittima.

E in casa nostra qual è la situazione? Secondo ADUC-Notiziario Droghe, dal 19/12/2017 al 09/07/2018
sono stati sequestrati 110.500 kg di droghe leggere e 44.300 kg di droghe pesanti, tre i morti e 1.391 le persone arrestate. Nel periodo compreso tra il 30/12/16 e il 18/12/17 le droghe leggere sequestrate ammontano a 138.400 Kg, quelle pesanti a 61.850 kg, 46.600 le dosi di droghe sintetiche; le piante di cannabis rilevate 99.200, 11 i morti, 1.524 gli arresti. Stringendo il campo all’attualità, e cioè  alla settimana che va dal 3 al 9 luglio 2018, le droghe leggere sequestrate ammontano a  7400 Kg, quelle pesanti a 2100, 1800 le dosi di droghe sintetiche, 4.400 le piante di cannabis, 72 le persone arrestate.