A number of Iranian residents had been denied entry into Colombia in latest days after allegedly utilizing false or suspicious identification, Colombian migration officers told newspaper El Tiempo.
The newspaper, citing unnamed sources inside Colombia Migration, wrote that there have been a number of incidents at completely different entry factors to the nation, together with Bogotá’s El Dorado Worldwide Airport in addition to in Cúcuta, a metropolis on the border with Venezuela.
Colombian border authorities, in line with the report, didn’t know if the Iranian nationals supposed to stay in Colombia, or use it as a transit level to Central America. In whole, six Iranian residents had been denied entry for utilizing false or suspicious paperwork.
The primary case was introduced on January 9 by Colombia Migration on social media.
“[Colombia Migration] within the [Bogotá El Dorado] airport refused entry to a few Iranian residents coming from Brazil utilizing false Greek passports, who claimed to be en path to Cancún,” in line with the company’s account on X.
The Iranians had been then returned to Brazil, in line with the intelligence supply.
One other case was reported the identical week by El Tiempo, citing sources from Colombia Migration.
They write that on January 8, two Iranian residents had been denied entry to the nation in Cúcuta, on the Venezuelan border, on account of “irregularities of their paperwork.” Migration officers flagged their actions as suspicious, highlighting uncommon latest journey in Central America.
In a separate case in Cúcuta, an Iranian girl was despatched again to Venezuela for irregularities surrounding her entry to the nation.
She was reportedly stopped whereas trying to board a flight to Colombia’s inside with Nicaragua as her last vacation spot.
Migration authorities informed El Tiempo that the girl was deported to Venezuela for “failing to adjust to present immigration rules.”
Some media reporting speculated that the residents had been tied to the Iranian authorities and will have been members of the militant group Hezbollah or the Iranian paramilitary Quds Drive.
There may be precedent for these theories; in 2021, the then Colombian protection minister informed media that safety forces had caught two Hezbollah brokers who had been conspiring to commit a “felony act.”
However others are much less alarmist in regards to the latest circumstances of cast paperwork.
Talking to The Bogotá Submit, Katherin Galindo, a Colombian safety analyst, defined that many migrants try to make use of the nation as a transit zone.
“Colombia is a transit nation for thus many migrants, authorized and unlawful, that wish to go to the US, so this isn’t one thing new, significantly for Center Japanese residents,” mentioned Galindo.
She additionally downplayed the concept that the tried entry would possibly represent a safety menace, particularly by members of Hezbollah.
“We’re speaking about migration and that must be thought-about a safety concern. [But] if we’re speaking about nationwide protection, like the opportunity of a terrorist assault, properly that can be much less probably,” she defined.
As an alternative, Galindo mentioned that the presence of cells of organizations like Hezbollah are extra frequent in international locations like Venezuela, the place the state has ties to those teams.
This text was initially printed on The Bogotá Post.
