Forces loyal to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega storm opposition stronghold following months of unrest
Masaya, Nicaragua’s third-biggest city, has become the main hub for opposition demands that Ortega step down after years of increasingly autocratic rule
Forces loyal to President Daniel Ortega asserted control over a key opposition stronghold on Wednesday after a long battle that has sharpened international condemnation and alarm over Nicaragua’s deadly political crisis.
Paramilitaries with assault rifles drove honking through the centre of Masaya, south of the capital, and hoisted the flag of Ortega’s ruling Sandinista party over a main square in the flashpoint Monimbo district. It had been hastily cleared of debris from the hours-long fighting that took place on Tuesday.
Police were seen driving off with several prisoners in the back of their vehicles.
There was no reliable death toll from the battle. A few locals reported “many deaths” or even a “massacre,” but paramilitaries speaking to journalists denied these accounts. A Nicaraguan rights group said on Tuesday there were at least two deaths: a woman and a policeman.
The idea was to dislodge them [opposition groups] so that the city was free of roadblocks
Alvaro Leiva, head of the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights, said around 200 people had fled Masaya and were being “chased by police and paramilitaries using dogs to track them”.