By Wendy Anders

Eyewitness accounts in and around Peñas Blancas on Costa Rica’s northern border with Nicaragua show growing desperation and also health concerns among hundreds of Haitian and African immigrants trying to journey to the U.S.

Costa Rica’s national TV Repretel documented a thwarted attempt last Wednesday by a boisterous group of immigrants to steal a police van in the midst of a chaotic protest of alleged abuses by a local “coyote” or underground guide.

Repretel reported July 20 from San Dimas, Guanacaste that a group of immigrants accused a woman of charging them $1,800 with promises to guide them northward out of Costa Rica. While she was being detained by the police, immigrants chanted loudly and, as they amassed in the street, a couple of men tried to take off with a police car.

In a May 22 on-site report for the Voz de Guanacaste, a regional bilingual, non-profit print and digital newspaper, Danilo Brenes reported that “the migrants say that there are about 900 people: men, women (some pregnant) and children living however they can. The majority appear sick and very untrusting…”

Brenes spoke with immigrants who described dangerous forays into the mountains of Nicaraguan in which some have died, and others have been robbed or lost for days before being returned to Costa Rica by Nicaraguan police. They describe having been stuck at the border for months without access to basic living conditions and with local Red Cross the only help available.

He also stated, “Sanitation is a priority. The Sapoa River flows to the huge Lake of Nicaragua; .. the migrants bathe there and relieve themselves. I ask myself, if disease breaks out, due to the lack of sanitation, will that not affect both countries?”

In a July 11 press statement, Costa Rican health officials stated that in May and June the Santa Cruz health area tended to 318 immigrants from Haiti and several different African countries who sought care for a variety of problems.

Brenes interviewed a man named Hagaf, from Ghana, who said, “‘I am here to go to the United States – that’s my destination. Many people here do not have money; they are all going to die here. We don’t have help. Just two days ago a boy died of frustration… and another from frustration. Others died in the mountains. I was in a group a while back and we [have] lost 31 people now…’”

Last week, the Perez Zeledon television station, TeleSur, July 19 reported receiving more reports of at least a hundred more immigrants coming in over the Panamanian border, but that police said they had sufficient coverage in the region to prevent illegal crossings.