For days, they say they were locked inside a hotel in Panama, surrounded by tight security with limited contact with the outside world. Nearly 300 migrants from Asia, all deported by the US, were held there by Panamanian authorities who agreed to take them in and eventually repatriate them.

Nearly 100 migrants who had been locked in a Panama hotel were bused to the camp late Tuesday night. “There are fenced cages,” said one of the detainees.

Panama has transferred about one-third of the deportees from various nations it had received from the United States to a camp in its Darien province Wednesday, an area that became the main thoroughfare for migrants traveling from South America to the U.

Days after the United States sent 300 migrants from Asia and the Middle East to Panama, a Panamanian official said that more than half had agreed to be deported to their countries of origin.

The migrants refused to be repatriated to their countries. They will be held in a migration facility near the Darien Gap along the Colombian border until third countries can be found to take them.