SNM director Samira Gozaine stated that the program would enable the detection of minors, within the flow of illegal travelers, in this situation, who use the Darien jungle route, bordering Colombia, on their way to the United States.

Gozaine said that Panama is the only country in the region that conducts biometric actions to identify people passing through the jungle with an Interpol extradition order or a criminal record, and these orders are then executed.

Public Security Minister Juan Manuel Pino and Government Minister Roger Tejada recently set up the National Amber Alert Commission so as to quickly and expeditiously locate minors in situations of theft, kidnapping, missing, or illegal deprivation of freedom.

According to official statistics, 40,458 migrant children have crossed the Darien jungle this year, most undocumented and with no guarantee that the adults who brought them are the minors’ parents or relatives.

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