PANAMA - A three-year-old child died after a boat carrying migrants towards Colombia capsized off Panama’s Caribbean Coast, Panamanian officials confirmed on Nov 9.

The boat capsized off the coast of Colon province and was carrying 21 people, who were pulled from the sea “thanks to the opportune intervention of a private vessel”, Panamanian officials said in a statement. They said the authorities then responded to help in rescue efforts.

The child, who officials said was originally from Colombia, was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but could not be revived.

A Panamanian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to provide information, confirmed that the migrants’ boat had been travelling not northward towards the United States, but in the direction of Colombia.

This is the second known case of a child drowning on a new migrant route that sprouted early in 2025 to help shuttle people back towards their home countries in South America after the

Trump administration virtually sealed the US border to migrants

In February, an eight-year-old boy from Venezuela drowned when his family’s boat capsized in rough seas.

As at late September, Panamanian officials say, more than 14,000 migrants in 2025 have ridden on small boats along Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts in an attempt to skirt the fearsome roadless jungle pass between Panama and Colombia known as the Darien Gap.

The authorities have all but sealed that passageway in an effort, alongside US officials, to stop a multiyear surge in northbound migration.

The so-called reverse migration route is run by small operations staffed by fishermen an...