For migrants bound for U.S., a long wait in a Colombian beach town

Migrants gather next to stores as they wait to cross into Panama to continue their journey toward the U.S., in Necocli, Colombia September 9, 2021. REUTERS/Henry Esquivel

NECOCLI, Colombia (Reuters) - Some 14,000 migrants - many of them Haitian - remain bottle-necked in the Colombian beach town of Necocli, awaiting their chance to enter Panama and continue their journey to the United States, as border crossing quotas are out-paced by new arrivals, migrants and the town's mayor said.

Tens of thousands of migrants pass through the town annually to catch boats across the Gulf of Uraba toward the jungles of the Darien Gap in Panama, where people smugglers guide groups on foot through one of the most treacherous barriers on the clandestine route to the United States.