AL JAZEERA: Migrants brave perilous Darien Gap in desperate trek to US →

Manguenlove Bellegarde gazed up in disbelief at the steep mountainside he had to climb at the beginning of his journey through one of the world’s most treacherous frontiers.

Along with his Dominican partner and two young children, the 33-year-old Haitian was attempting to cross the Darien Gap – a lawless stretch of mountainous jungle 160 kilometres (100 miles) long and 50km (30 miles) wide between Colombia and Panama.

Asylum seekers and refugees pass a figure of the Virgin Mary before boarding a boat that will take them to Acandi, a town in northern Colombia on the border with Panama [Steve Grattan/Al Jazeera]