Donkey Route: An illegal method to immigrate
On the suspicion of the “Donkey Route”, the charter plane was grounded for four days in France. It is not yet clear why the Indians were flying to Nicaragua but they were allegedly on a donkey route. 25 of them sought asylum in France while 276 passengers were sent back to Mumbai. Over 300 Indians heading to Nicaragua were grounded in France after being suspected of being trafficked.
The chartered plane, an Airbus 340, carrying 303 Indian passengers was grounded in France where it stopped for refueling. the chartered plane was arriving from the United Arab Emirates. It is also said that there was some tip-off indicating potential human trafficking.
The flight — operated by a Romanian charter company called Legend Airlines — was on its way to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The police said that most of the passengers from the plane were from Patan, Mehsana, Banaskatha and Anand districts of Indian Gujarat state. Other majority were from Punjab state of India. A probe already ordered to reach to the kingpins of such massive illegal immigration syndicate.
It is also said that these passengers had paid between 5K dollars to 150k USD to the agents to help them reach the southern border of USA. These passengers were supposedly destined to either USA or Canada. Reportedly , 25 Indian passengers, including five minors had sought asylum in France hence not travelled back to India. Two passengers were detained based on suspicions of trafficking before being released. They have also reportedly requested asylum.
While no evidence of trafficking was found, the inquiry gave way to the concerns of undocumented immigration that are still being investigated by French authorities.
What is ‘Donkey Route’
Just like a donkey jumps here and there to reach its destination, similarly, People travelling through the donkey route, are taken to several other countries. Hence, it is called the ‘donkey route’. This is basically a perilous illegal immigration technique that involves crossing a country’s borders through a backdoor route via multiple stops in other countries.
Dream Destinations:
Tracing the journey of an asylum seeker, an October 2023 report in The Wall Street Journal said how the person flew from New Delhi to Hungary, and from there to France, before arriving in Mexico City — the capital of Mexico — via plane. From there, he took a bus to the US border, before crossing into California.
Not less than an week , coincidently, a Bollywood movie “Dunki” featuring Shahrukh Khan and Tapasi Pannu was released with the same subject highlighting the plight and hard route challenges faced by these immigrants obsessed with reaching their dream destinations but taking such an illegal way of immigration.
From October 2022 to September, nearly 97,000 Indians were stopped while trying to enter the US illegally. That’s a fivefold increase from 2019-2020.
