Panama receives first US flight with deported migrants from other nations

Panama received the first American flight that transported deportees from other nations while Donald Trump’s administration accepts his offer to act as «bridge,» said the president of the Central American nation on Thursday.

«Yesterday came a flight from the United States Air Force with 119 people from the most diverse nationalities in the world,» said President José Raúl Mulino at his weekly press conference. He said there were immigrants from China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan on board.

According to Mulino, he was the first of three expected flights that was expected, they would take about 360 people in total. «It’s not massive,» he said.

It was expected that migrants were transferred to a shelter in the Darien before being returned to their countries, he added.

Last week, the Secretary of State for the United States, Marco Rubio, met with Mulino In Panama. While Trump’s demands to resume the control of the Panama Canal dominated the visit, Mulino also discussed the efforts of his country to stop migration through the Darién cap and offered Panama as a bridge to send to the US deportees of Return to their countries, including the use of an airport in Darién.

Migration through the Darién plug, which connects Panama and Colombia, decreased approximately 90 % in January compared to the same month of the previous year.