DATELINE.

The World’s Most Dangerous Journey?

Part 2.

REPORTER:  Jason Motlagh

Until now, it's been a waiting game in the village of Bijao.

REPORTER (Translation): Two cans of sardines?

But today we're heading off.

CARLOS VILLALON:  You want to take all this?

REPORTER: No, just this.

We've connected with 20 migrants and they're allowing us to document their journey into the jungle, where kidnappings and killings are rife. They've come from South East Asia and Africa and are risking everything for a chance at a better life in the United States. Everyone is running away from something. But what exactly, I'm yet to find out.

The Darien is a drug trafficking corridor between Colombia and Panama. It's also home to notorious leftist guerilla fighters known as FARC. Local guides will take us in boats to the end of the river and then through the jungle on foot. Our destination is Paya, a native village on the Panama side of the Darien. Once inside Panama, the migrants will have another six borders to cross before reaching the United States.

GUIDE: Give it to me, this is mine.

A local guide can mean the difference between living and dying out here.

GUIDE:  20 you give him.

As the migrants wait anxiously in the boats a dispute breaks out.

GUIDE:  No! We are nine of us. Nine. That's eight. 1, 2, 3, 4... Hey, I give you the money. Give him the money.

The guides are asking for more money.

MIGRANT:  We gave him 20, we gave him $20,.

Three times, they agreed-upon price. No-one has any leverage out here.

CARLOS VILLALON:  $600 each. Too much?

Carlos, my local producer, and I negotiate.

GUIDE: I think it’s too little, you think it’s too much.

The migrants tell me the locals are profiting from their misery. But the villagers themselves suffer poverty, and the corrupt effects of the drug trade.

CARLOS VILLALON:  300 each. It's fine, yeah?

It's not fine. But we need our guides to keep us safe. So we pay up and head off.  I ride with Ebrima, a political activist from Gambia. Ebrima tells me he fled after learning his name was on a government hit list, leaving his pregnant wife and two children behind. He has never heard of the Darien Gap. He just knows there is a jungle he must cross if he wants to reach the United States.

We leave the water and the hardest part of our journey begins. We will have to scale steep ravines and navigate muddy tracks strangled by thick jungle. Within minutes of stepping under the canopy, we feel sealed off from the outside world. There's no map. No coordinates to follow. Satellite phones rarely get a signal. We're aiming for a stone obelisk that we're told marks the border. If we're lucky, we'll get there in two days.

MIGRANT:  Allah! Allah help me! Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!

Thousands of migrants trekked this route last year, some after fleeing the wars in Syria and Afghanistan. Nobody knows how many died out here. In my experience, most refugees are ordinary people forced to take extraordinary risks.

REPORTER:  Ready, guys?

Like Ebrima, who's seeking political asylum in the US. Like my father, who left Iran for a chance at a better life and like Evelyn, the only woman in our group.

REPORTER:  Are you scared about this trip?

EVELYN, MIGRANT:  Very, very scared. But I don't have any choice. The war that we have in Cameroon, Boko Haram killing all our brothers, we have no choice than to run, to go hide ourselves somewhere.

She struggles up the mud-slick hills where you can't get a foothold, enduring unbearable heat and humidity. Evelyn tells me she was a hairdresser in her home country, Cameroon. Now, she's in the fiercest of jungles, scarcely able to breathe. Rotting trees snag at my feet. I've trekked in jungles before, but here, the menace and isolation are incomparable, then... a reminder of the danger, bigger than the jungle itself.

CARLOS VILLALON:  Have you ever seen anything like this? I always had dreams with a fucking skull, this is like no dreams I know exist.

The skull faces toward Panama, presumably a warning to anyone who dares enter Colombian FARC territory. We're feeling rattled and move quickly to find the others. Travelling in a group gives the comfort of strength in numbers but that's an illusion. We lean on each other, but in our minds, we're on our own.

CARLOS VILLALON (Translation):  All of a sudden I got fucked. I’m completely exhausted. I thought I’d make it in perfect condition. I’ll get there but I’ll be in a shit condition. But I’ll make it.

Drenched in sweat, Carlos sucks on glucose.

MIGRANT (Translation): I’ve sweated at least ten buckets!  Ten buckets!

The jungle is cruel, it soaks you as it sucks you dry. We're guzzling litre after litre of precious water. Unsure of when we'll find it again. Momir, one of the Bengalis, says he is feeling feverish and can't go on. He begs someone to help him carry his bag.

MIGRANT:  Here, let me see the heavy things. Open! All the clothes, throw them away.

But there are no takers. He's forced to decide which of his meagre possessions he can do without so he can keep walking.

MIGRANT:  Get rid of anything heavy. All the clothes, throw them away. No, don’t throw your shoes. Don’t throw your shoes.

We had hoped to reach the border by night fall, but our pace is slower than expected. CARLOS VILLALON:  Hey brother man.  The rows of leaf-cutter ants that line the trail make it look easy. 

EVELYN:  Look at the forest, I have never moved in this type of forest since I was born. Even in Africa, I don’t know this type of forest. Very hard. Too difficult for a woman, it is too much for me, too much.

REPORTER:  You are the only woman?

EVELYN:  The only woman.

After 12 brutal hours hiking in treacherous conditions, we finally stop and make camp for the night.

MIGRANT:  So we are resting.

EVELYN: Camping.

MIGRANT:  Camping,, camping until 5 o’clock in the morning. I’m so tired.

MIGRANT 2: Well, you lie down. Sleep, sleep.

The mosquitos out here are relentless…

MIGRANT:   We had repellent too but it is finished.

…and as darkness falls, their appetite intensifies. Zika virus, dengue and yellow fever are all prevalent here. The migrants will sleep in the open, fodder for swarming bats and mosquitos. The Bengalis wash down vanilla cookies with the last of their water.

EBRIMA: The jungle is not easy. You have seen it with your eyes.

Ebrima has travelled for weeks to get this far. He travelled from Gambia to Ecuador, where entry visas are not required. From there, he travelled overland to get to Colombia but this, without a doubt, is the toughest part of his journey.

REPORTER: Have you ever been this tired before?

EBRIMA:  No, I've never encountered tiredness like this before. Never happened in my life since. This one? Never.

REPORTER:  Are you going to be OK?

EBRIMA:  Sure, sure, sure, it's going to be OK. I'm going to be OK. But it's not easy, absolutely. But I'm sure it's going to be OK. I'll make it to the final destination. Yeah, amen.

Even if Ebrima makes it into Panama, there will still be five more countries to cross before reaching the United States. It's believed the 25,000 migrants crossed into Panama last year but in the middle of our journey, the country's President announces the rules have changed. Panama will no longer turn a blind eye to these arrivals. Instead, anyone crossing without permission will be rejected without exception. Tomorrow we'll push to the border. We don't know what will happen when we get there.

MIGRANT:  Goodnight!

CARLOS VILLALON:  Nepalese team ready?

The hangover of a rough night's sleep is tempered by the prospect of reaching the Panama border.

MIGRANT:  Let's go!

It's a mixture of nerves and excitement. The border is hidden somewhere deep in the jungle ahead. When we cross it, we'll still have at least 30 kilometres to walk to get back to civilisation. We're anxious about meeting the Panama border police. They usually focus on drug trafficking. Now they have new orders: to stop migrants. We worry that it could cause problems for the group we're travelling with.

REPORTER:  Just a few more minutes to the border. This is the final push and then we're in Panama. Let's go.

At last, we reach the border of Colombia and Panama. The hinge of south and central America. A stone obelisk peeks through the trees as a marker. The migrants are now (not) out of the Darien yet, but they enjoy the moment as they should. They've just left another continent behind.

REPORTER: How do you feel? Do you think you can make it all the way?

EBRIMA:   Yeah, I'll make it, Inshallah, because of God I will make it. Because I think the hardest part (side) of the journey is almost done. What I encounter, may I never encounter this throughout my life. It's too hard. It's too hard.

REPORTER (Translation): What’s the problem my friend, what’s the problem?

We're in Panama now and with the border closed only days ago, the guides are edgy. They could be arrested for helping migrants cross the border. They decide we should split up.

CARLOS VILLALON:  We gotta tell them, look, man, if the police catch you with this guy, this guy is going to jail.

REPORTER:  They say the trail is very easy to follow and it's about 2 hours to the Pyre River and the village is just after that. OK? OK. OK. See you in Paya. Take care, OK? See you. See you there.

As I wave goodbye, it crosses my mind I may never see them again. We'll travel separately to maximise everyone's safety. We stay with our guides and the migrants walk ahead. The guides set a blistering pace. And then... They're gone. I become paranoid I'm being set up for an ambush. I can't see the guides or Carlos, or Roger, our cameraman. I'm all alone. Dizzy. Lost. 

We prepared nine months for this journey, taking every precaution. The migrants came with nothing. Not knowing what they were getting themselves into. Out here, the line between survival and oblivion is a slippery one. Finally, Carlos staggers in but there's no sign of the guides.

REPORTER:  Wait a second, I have all the money in my bag and they know I have money, so maybe they set up an ambush or something like that.

CARLOS VILLALON:  Yeah. You know, you disappear here. They bury you, who the hell is gonna find you, man? And they come back, that's it. It's hardcore place, like here, you don't want to have an enemy on these people, really because they hag (hack?) you.

REPORTER: It's tricky, man, a tricky place.

With the guides gone, we attempt to find the river in a way out of here on our own. Our satellite tracker isn't working because of the thick jungle canopy and cloud cover.  We have no idea where we are, or where the migrants are. They will also be looking for a way out of here, with no guides, not even a compass.

So we've been hiking for the last 2 hours with all of our bags and we're tapped out on water, we're still up at altitude, so we're in a bit of a fix right now. We gotta get to a water source one way or the other. We've got iodine, at least we can purify it but we need to get something in our system. I'm getting a little dizzy and it's getting darker.

Carlos is getting desperate. He drinks from a dirty puddle. He's past caring about sickness and disease. And then...

REPORTER: Good morning. Hi.

We walk right into border guard soldiers.

SOLDIER (Translation): Come in, good morning.

REPORTER: Thank you, my friend. Good morning.

It's the first time in my life I'm relieved to face the barrel of an automatic rifle. The migrants are here as well. They're under armed guard.

REPORTER (Translation): Can we film? We can't talk to them or film them. Don't record.

As we're led away, I hear Ebrima call out to me. "Don't forget about us, brother." We have the right passports, which means we're free to enter Panama but in a devastating blow, an officer tells us the migrants will all be sent back into the Darien, given no chance to prove if they are refugees under the UN convention.

If they'd arrived five days earlier, their fate would be different, and they'd now be continuing north towards the US. We might've given them some water but they have to march back up the same way they came, into Colombia. He said it's a presidential order, it's out of his control, he's torn, but those are the orders, so... Looks like they're all on their way back to Colombia as we speak. It's unthinkable.

The Darien Gap is the darkest passage of the global migration phenomenon. Our reporting bears witness to this journey. But we still don't know how the story ends for the 20 migrants we travelled with. I've reached out to some of them but my emails have gone unanswered. It's been four months since I returned from the Darien and my hope of hearing from them is fading. But I hope all the same.