PANAMA CITY, March 14, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The treacherous Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama is no longer a migratory corridor for US-bound migrants, Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino said Thursday.

His comments follow a plunge in the number of migrants heading north from South America due to US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

"We have ended a movement that began in 2016," when overland migration between South and Central America increased significantly, Mulino told a press conference.

Over the past three years, more than a million people have risked their lives trekking through the Darien jungle, despite dangers including criminal gangs, fast-flowing rivers and wild animals.

But while a year ago thousands of migrants crossed the Darien heading north each month, today only dozens make the same journey, according to Mulino.

"It's a very significant decrease," he said.

In response, Panama's government has begun dismantling camps set up with the help of United Nations agencies to receive arriving migrants.

"We will not allow any more migrants in the Darien area," warned Mulino, who promised during election campaigning last year to "close" the route.

The migration wave from south to north has been replaced by increased reverse migration as South Americans head home due to Trump's hardline policies.

Southbound migrants, however, do not have to cross the jungle to reach Colombia, but instead travel by boats from small Caribbean ports in Panama.