The girl, 8, from Venezuela, had slept fitfully the night before, wailing in her dreams, her mother said, about the men trying to kill her.
Days earlier, the family had entered the Darién Gap, the jungle straddling Colombia and Panama that in the last three years has become one of the world’s busiest migrant highways.
After climbing mountains and crisscrossing rivers in their quest to reach the United States, their group was accosted by a half-dozen men in ski masks, holding long guns and issuing threats.
“Women, take off your clothes!” the assailants shouted, the mother said, before they probed each woman’s intimate parts looking for cash.
Then the men turned to the girl, her mother said, ordering her to undress for a search, too.
Locations:
Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, United States