With an area of 194 square miles, it is the largest island in Central America. Dotted with vast tropical forests, white sandy beaches, cascading waterfalls, thermal springs and waters teeming with fish, it is surrounded by the largest ring of coral reefs in the eastern Pacific. But the beautiful Coiba also has a dark side – we can read about it The essence of the Smithsonian.
Brutal concentration camps
From 1919 to 2004, the island of Coiba was home to Panama’s most dangerous murderers and rapists, as well as thousands of “missing” (“disappeared”) political prisoners who disappeared under the dictatorships of Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega. The island’s remoteness—coiba was cut off from the mainland by sea-level rise more than 12,000 years ago, and abandoned by its last known indigenous people in the mid-16th century—made it an ideal location for a penal colony in the early 1900s. It was hard to get there and even harder to leave.
1,300 prisoners lived in Coiba, most of whom lived in 30 remote agricultural camps on the island.
Of course, Coiba was not the only prison island, but it was one of the largest. Volt penal colony Also off the coast of Brazil is another island on Isabela Island in Ecuador, but perhaps the most famous is Devil’s Island in French Guiana, where an estimated 80,000 prisoners were held – most of whom died of disease and abuse. (By the way, Bellango, that is, Henri Charrier, miraculously managed to escape from here.)
magical ecosystem
On the isolated island of Coiba, flora and fauna began to thrive naturally, and just three years after the end of Panama’s military rule in 1989, the government declared the island and its surroundings a national park. In 2005, UNESCO designated Coiba National Park and declared its marine area a part of the Natural World Heritage.
Today, crowds of tourists visit Diving, due to the lush nature, bottlenose dolphins and giant sea urchins. The dense jungle is inhabited by unique wildlife, such as endemic species such as the Coiban agouti rodent. The island is also home to bird species that are extinct elsewhere, such as the crowned eagles and the last large group of Panama’s scarlet parrots. Its waters are home to 800 unique species of fish, and nearly 20 species of cetaceans, such as humpback whales and orcas. Reptiles such as giant frogs and green iguanas live on the island, and sea turtles nest on its beaches. That’s why Coepa is called the “Special Galapagos of Panama”.
The diversity of plants and animals that can be searched for here is enormous. It is a hotbed of marine biodiversity, and its forests are full of unique creatures that have evolved into different species than those on land.
— says marine biologist Juan Mate, who is also director of scientific affairs at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama.
Dangerous monsters
The hundreds of crocodiles that actually live here can act as a deterrent during the prisoners’ time, just as the 33 species of sharks (including bull and tiger sharks) and deadly snakes can discourage prisoners from escaping.
Traces of the former penal colony can still be seen in Coiba: the ruins of a prison church, a cemetery full of unmarked graves, and one of the former sentry posts serving as a natural history museum, which provides plenty of information about colonization. Era, can visit the same prison.
The island has become one of the unmissable tourist attractions in Panama, but its bleak history will always haunt it. For prisoners, the place was hell, and for today’s visitors it is the Garden of Eden itself.
(Cover photo: White Sandy Beach on Coiba Island on December 6, 2016. Photo by Kike Calvo/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
