April 2023 marked five years since the beginning of the citizen protests that marked a social and political change in Nicaragua. Reports from national and international organizations, such as the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), conclude that the State committed crimes against humanity against the people of Nicaragua, which are murder, imprisonment or other deprivation of physical liberty, persecution, rape, torture and forced disappearance.
According to the register of fatalities systematized by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), "in the context of the crisis accounts for at least 355 victims during the repression of social protests between April 18 and July 31, 2019. According to the gender breakdown, 15 would be women and 340 men. In addition, 27 of the total number of victims would be children and/or adolescents. The data also shows that 23 agents of the National Police lost their lives in this context".
This ODH report is focused on compiling cases of human rights violations and events that occurred in the period from June 2022 to the first half of April 2023, among which stand out the banishment and stripping of Nicaraguan nationality of 222 political prisoners and the continued imprisonment of 36 others, the closure of civil society organizations through discretionary mechanisms promoted by the Ministry of the Interior (MIGOB), the siege of the Catholic Church, the attacks on journalists and independent media, all of which have caused more Nicaraguans to go into exile for protection and in search of better development opportunities in the face of the economic crisis the country is experiencing.
On March 2, 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Council's Group of Experts on Human Rights in Nicaragua (GHREN) presented a report on the violations of fundamental rights by the Nicaraguan State, in which they conclude that these are "crimes against humanity" and encourage the international community to investigate these acts and take legal action against those responsible.