Colombia Becomes Hub for African Migrants Trying to Reach U.S.

As document numbers of individuals cross into the USA, the southern border will not be the one place the place the migration disaster is taking part in out.

Almost three thousand miles to the south, inside Colombia’s principal worldwide airport, tons of of African migrants have been pouring in day by day, paying traffickers roughly $10,000 for flight packages they hope will assist them attain the USA.

The surge of African migrants within the Bogotá airport, which started final 12 months, is a vivid instance of the affect of one of many largest international actions of individuals in many years and the way it’s shifting migration patterns.

With some African nations confronting financial disaster and political upheaval, and Europe cracking down on immigration, many more Africans are making the far longer journey to the U.S.

The migrants in Bogotá come primarily from West African nations corresponding to Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Sierra Leone, although some are from as far east as Somalia.

They’re certain for Nicaragua, the one nation in Central America the place residents from many African nations — and from Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela — can enter with out a visa. Specialists say the nation’s president, Daniel Ortega, loosened visa necessities lately to compel the USA to elevate sanctions on his authoritarian authorities.

To succeed in Nicaragua, migrants embark on a journey of a number of stops, flying to hubs like Istanbul, then on to Colombia, the place many fly to El Salvador after which to Nicaragua. (There are not any direct flights between Colombia and Nicaragua). As soon as there, they head northward once more, by land, towards Mexico and the U.S. border.

The journey, which has been known as by airline workers “the posh route,’’ bypasses the damaging jungle go linking South and North America known as the Darién Gap.

Final 12 months, 60,000 Africans entered Mexico on their manner to the United States, up from fewer than 7,000 the 12 months earlier than, Mexican authorities reported. (General crossings on the Southern border declined initially of this 12 months, however ebbs like these are usually not unusual and may be affected by the season and different elements.)

Amongst these disembarking just lately at El Dorado Worldwide Airport in Bogotá on a flight from Istanbul was Djelikha Camara, 24, who had studied engineering in Guinea, however mentioned she wished to depart as a result of a army coup in 2021 had plunged the nation into disaster.

She had seen the trans-Atlantic journey marketed on social media, she mentioned, and thought, “I wish to attempt it.”

A each day flight from Istanbul to Bogotá, on Turkish Airways, has change into the preferred route for African migrants attempting to achieve Nicaragua, airline officers say. However different trans-Atlantic routes — from Spain and Morocco, with stops in Colombia or Brazil — have additionally boomed. Officers say journey brokers in Africa purchase tickets in bulk that they resell at a revenue.

They promote on-line, together with in WhatsApp teams like one in Guinea with hundreds of members known as “Let’s Go away the Nation.”

Colombia’s migration director, Carlos Fernando García, mentioned massive numbers of Africans started showing in Bogotá’s airport final spring after the federal government suspended transit visa necessities for residents of a number of African nations to stimulate tourism.

In 2023, greater than 56,000 folks from Africa transited by means of Colombia, in response to migration information. Authorities wouldn’t present information from earlier years however immigrant teams say final 12 months’s determine is a big improve and fueled primarily by migrants.

Whereas flying is much less harmful than traversing a brutal jungle, migrants at Bogotá’s airport have additionally confronted ordeals.

Some have needed to look ahead to connecting flights scheduled days after they arrived. Others have been stranded after discovering that El Salvador, the following nation on their itinerary, prices folks from Africa a $1,130 transit payment.

The airport has no beds or showers for migrants. The one meals and water is offered at expensive cafes.

There have been flu outbreaks. A girl went into labor. In December, two African youngsters have been present in a rest room after being deserted by vacationers who weren’t their mother and father.

Mr. García mentioned airways have been chargeable for passengers within the airport between flights, not the federal government. “It’s personal firms which are failing of their responsibility,” he mentioned, “Of their rush to generate income, they’re leaving passengers stranded.”

Turkish Airways didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Avianca, a Colombian airline that operates a number of routes utilized by African migrants headed to Nicaragua, mentioned it was obliged to move passengers who met journey necessities.

In Bogotá’s airport, migrants are largely stored out of view of different passengers.

Mouhamed Diallo, 40, a journalist who taught college programs in Conakry, Guinea’s capital, mentioned he had spent two days within the arrivals space, earlier than being allowed into the departures part the day of his subsequent flight — to San Salvador, El Salvador.

“I discovered somebody who left yesterday, ” he mentioned. “He had been there 12 days.’’

Many Africans utilizing this route are educated professionals like Mr. Diallo with siblings in the USA and Europe who assist pay for his or her tickets.

Mr. Diallo mentioned he left Guinea as a result of he felt unsafe following the army coup. He’s Fulani, the bulk ethnic group within the nation, and supported an opposition chief who had gone into exile, he mentioned.

“Your chief exit, you exit,’’ he mentioned. “If you happen to don’t, you find yourself in jail.”

Some migrants have discovered themselves trapped within the airport.

Kanja Jabbie, a former police officer from Sierra Leone, mentioned he paid $10,000 to journey to Nicaragua. However he discovered of the transit payment El Salvador requires solely after he arrived in Colombia.

He had no money, he mentioned, and no method to get it. There isn’t a place to obtain wired funds within the terminal, and even an A.T.M.

“I’m caught,” mentioned Mr. Jabbie, 46, who spent three days wandering the terminal, surviving on tea.

The payment, which El Salvador imposed final fall, calling it an “airport enchancment payment,” has been a principal trigger for the backlog of passengers within the Bogotá airport, in response to airline officers. Nicaragua additionally prices a payment, a smaller one, for folks from Africa. Neither authorities responded to a request for remark.

The realm round Gate A9, the place each day flights depart to San Salvador, is stuffed with migrants.

Folks sleep in a nook, or kneel in Muslim prayer, utilizing airplane blankets. Laundry hangs on baggage.

A pregnant girl from Guinea sat on the gate one January afternoon. Requested why she left, she produced a photograph exhibiting her face, badly overwhelmed. She pulled again a sleeve to disclose a scar.

“I’m right here to avoid wasting my life — my life and my child. I’m hiding from my husband,” mentioned the girl, who requested to go by solely her first preliminary, T, for her security. “Hopefully I can attain the U.S.”

She had arrived in Bogotá 4 days earlier than. Her Avianca flight to El Salvador left that day, however she was got rid of.

“I don’t know why,” she mentioned.

Airport and airline workers who mentioned they weren’t licensed to talk publicly mentioned passengers generally complained about migrants who had not been capable of bathe for days.

In response, Avianca’s cabin crew will repeat the corporate motto: “The sky belongs to everybody.”

Migrants typically fall sick after being caught in shut quarters, airline staff mentioned, and a few appear fragile. Final spring, on a flight from Madrid to Bogotá, a person from Mauritania died of a coronary heart assault.

Since December, when the 2 migrant youngsters have been left behind within the airport, Colombian authorities have taken a harder stance.

Airways are required to confirm that youngsters are touring with adults who’re their mother and father and Colombian authorities are urgent them to allow aboard solely individuals who have a connecting flight inside 24 hours.

Migration officers have additionally began rounding up migrants whose tickets have expired, who linger within the airport for greater than a day or who come from a handful of African nations from which Colombia nonetheless requires a transit visa. They’re placing them on flights again to Istanbul.

Mr. Jabbie, the policeman from Sierra Leone, was amongst them.

A minimum of one episode turned violent. This month, three ladies from Cameroon resisted and have been dragged screaming by means of the airport by migration officers and the police and have been struck repeatedly with a Taser, they mentioned.

“After we collapse, they put us on the airplane,” mentioned Agnes Foncha Malung, 29.

Ms. Malung, who braids hair for a residing, determined to depart her homeland with two mates, she mentioned, after some family members’ properties have been burned down amid clashes between English- and French-speaking factions in Cameroon.

The ladies have been held in Bogotá’s airport for a number of days over what migration authorities advised them have been visa points earlier than they have been deported.

Ms. Malung, talking by cellphone from Cameroon, mentioned the three have been sharing a rented room till they discovered their subsequent transfer.

She mentioned she paid $11,500 for the journey. “It price me quite a bit,’’ she mentioned.

Migration authorities didn’t reply to repeated requests for touch upon the incident.

Nonetheless, many African migrants have managed to make it to the USA. Mr. Diallo, the journalist, arrived in New York’s La Guardia Airport — his ninth airport in 17 days — on a chilly January day.

He had traveled by means of Central America and Mexico in smugglers’ automobiles, he mentioned, and sat shivering all evening in Arizona earlier than he was picked up by the U.S. Border Patrol and requested asylum.

After being launched with a date in immigration court docket, he traveled to the Bronx to hitch his brother. He has been staying in his cramped condominium, he mentioned, and serving to at his comfort retailer.

Requested if he would ship his spouse and kids on the identical route, Mr. Diallo mentioned, “No, by no means.”

“By no means in my life,” he added. “I’ve traumatism.”

Reporting was contributed by Genevieve Glatsky and Federico Rios from Bogotá, Colombia; Ruth Maclean from Dakar, Senegal; Mady Camara from Dakar, Senegal; and Safak Timur from Istanbul. Simón Posada contributed analysis from Bogotá.