Random Facts about Isla Coiba Where Staying Locked Up Was Safer Than Escaping Prison Built On This Insanely Dangerous Island (12 items)

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  (#1) Prisoners Were Called "Los Desaparecidos" Or The Disappeared

  The penal colony on Coiba Island started housing criminals and political prisoners in 1919. As Panama's most severe prison, it was home to "los desaparecidos" - the men who disappeared from society after they committed some heinous crime or made the wrong political leader mad. Some of the prisoners were awaiting trial or sentencing, but the majority of men held on Coiba Island were there for specific amounts of time - or until they died. 

  During the dictatorships of Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega, prisoners sent to Coiba Island disappeared en masse, hence the name. After Noriega was ousted in 1989, the prison went back to being mainly a criminal institution.
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  (#12) The Island And Its Uniqueness Is Under Threat By Drug Dealers And Poachers

   

  A post shared by Chama de Viaje �� (@chamadeviaje) on Dec 26, 2017 at 7:04pm PST

  The skeleton crew on Coiba Island has to live with the possibilities that something - anything, really - they come upon on any given day may kill them. More recently, they also have had to face poor funding and external threats. Poachers illegally kill sharks for their fins and fish in the reefs. The remoteness of the island also lends itself to drug runners, who use it as a stop-off point as they move drugs throughout the region. 

  Individuals that want to visit Coiba Island have to get permission, but Panama is interested in the tourist opportunities it holds. Who knows what that waiting list will look like.
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  (#6) At Least One Mass Grave Has Been Discovered On The Island

  With the slow exploration of Coiba Island, there remains much that isn't known about its past and its present. Almost 80% of the island is made up of "virgin" forest. During the 1990s, Panama sent in several explorers who "stumbled across a large, recent mass grave where it’s believed guards had been killing prisoners for sport and throwing them into a pit." The investigation ceased, however, because of the harsh conditions on the island. Weather and threats from plants and animals alike continue to hinder efforts to go deeper into the forests to see what mysteries they hold. 
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  (#3) The Penal Colony Was Made Up Of As Many As Thirty Camps

  The penal colony itself spread prisoners throughout the island, with guards residing in small fortress-like buildings on the north side of the island. Prisoners were left to live in structures made out of natural materials or in cells with no windows, furniture, or bathrooms. At its height, the camp was home to about 3,000 prisoners living in some 30 camps.
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  (#4) Prisoners On The Island Went Crazy From The Extreme Conditions

  Parque Nacional Coiba #Panamá vivelo con #expedicioncoiba #fredycoiba #paraisonatural #coiba #islacoiba #coibaisland #ecoturismo #aventura pic.twitter.com/6n10dOBYHe

  — Expedition Coiba PTY (@ExpedicionCoiba) October 31, 2016

  The cells on Coiba Island were so barren and small that the prisoners in them lost their minds. During the late 1980s, visitors to the island found a man who had been in his cell for seven months, having only been fed through a small space in his door with no other human contact. When the man was taken out of the cell, they discovered he "was living in 8 inches (20cm) of his own filth. He was rolled up in a ball, screaming and demanding to be put back inside as the sun hurt him."
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  (#8) After Prisoners Left, Mutant Creatures Soon Followed

  When prisoners finally left the island in 2004, the livestock they had tended for years were left behind. As a result, those animals began to breed with various indigenous mammals, creating hybrid and genetically unique creatures. Visitors report seeing "mice the size of watermelon, deer with short legs, strange lizards you don’t see anywhere else, as well as gigantic bats."

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