'If I go back, I'll die': Colombian town scrambles to accommodate 10,000 migrants
Joe Parkin Daniels in Necoclí
@joeparkdan
Sun 8 Aug 2021 05.00 EDT
When the loudspeaker announced that the day’s last boat across Colombia’s Gulf of Urabá would begin boarding, a desperate scrum of Haitians rushed forward, jostling for spaces on the rickety craft.
Most had been stuck in this remote Caribbean coastal town for days, trapped in a migration bottleneck caused by the loosening of Covid travel restrictions and growing unrest, poverty and violence across the region.
In Necoclí, the water in the hostels was out most days, and the beach under the coconut trees was getting dirtier. Crossing the gulf would not just represent the next step towards the US but a way out of purgatory in paradise.
Since January, more than 25,000 irregular migrants have passed through this part of the country, compared to 4,000 last year, when migration ground to a halt because of strict lockdowns across the region.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/aug/08/necocli-colombia-migrants
= new reply since forum marked as read
We are dispatching these poor people down to lower Mexico. Via planes, capacity 135. So sad. 
