Managua:

Between April 18 and September 18, 2018, four municipalities of the department of Managua (Managua the capital, Ciudad Sandino, Ticuantepe and Tipitapa) were targets of brutal repression by the police, paramilitary groups and mobs loyal to the FSLN.  This is a summary of the main acts of violence, in which 16 people were killed by the regime.

Managua the Capital:

Managua is the capital city of Nicaragua and the capital of the department of the same name.  It is the headquarters of the national government and of the branches of State.  Of the 2,223,000 inhabitants of the department, 1,357,330 live in the capital, with 95% of its population urban and 5% rural.

April 18: A protest by people opposing the Social Security reforms was attacked by thugs on motorcycles and members of the pro-government Sandinista Youth in front of the Camino de Oriente shopping center.  The attackers wounded several people and stole cell phones and video equipment of journalists covering the fray.  Students had come out in support of the elderly protesters there, and also gathered at the main gate of the Central American University (UCA), where they too were attacked by mobs that caused destruction in the area.

April 19: Protests were activated in the National Autonomous University-Managua, the Polytechnic University (UPOLI), the National Engineering University (UNI) and the UCA. The police increased their force with the use of tear gas and rubber bullets.  The demonstrators defended themselves with rocks, homemade mortars and Molotov cocktails.  From 9:00 am to 12:15 pm, students and citizens were reported wounded and detained.

April 20: The 15-year-old Álvaro Manuel Conrado Dávila was shot in the neck while trying to deliver water to the demonstrators on the grounds of the UNI during a repressive scaling-up by the police against the universities.  He died four hours later.  At the UPOLI, Michael Humberto Cruz Sánchez was shot in the chest at close range.

April 21:  Student Kevin Roberto Dávila López was shot in the head in the Rafaela Herrera sector near the UPOLI and died on May 16.  Dany Stanley Rivas, a 25-year-old paint specialist, received a bullet to the abdomen that perforated his femoral artery.  In the San Judas neighborhood, paramilitaries firing at close range killed Marcos Antonio Samorio Anderson, a 30-year-old laborer.

April 22: Pillaging by pro-government mobs generated confrontations with neighbors who tried to defend the businesses under attack.  Jessner Josué Rivas, age 15, was shot dead. Meanwhile, Ismael Pérez Vílchez (and/or Pérez López) was shot in the Bethel neighborhood.

May 30: An attack on the Mothers’ Day March by paramilitaries and snipers left nine dead in Managua and other parts of the country.  The Managua victims were:

• Orlando Daniel Aguirre Córdoba, a 15-year-old sixth grade student.
• Jonathan Eduardo Morazán Meza, 21 years old, a university student.
• Francisco Javier Reyes Zapata, 34 years old, an accountant and merchant.
• Edgard Guevara Portobanco, a 38-year-old taxi driver and university student.

June 22: Police carried out “Operation Clean-up” in neighborhoods of Managua. Wendell Francisco Rivera Narváez, a 17-year-old high school student, was shot in the head, killing him instantly.

June 23: Johnson Tonatyu Merlo Sevilla (“Tony” Merlo), a 24-year-old UPOLI student, died from a bullet wound to the abdomen.

July 13-14: In an attack by police and paramilitaries for 12 continuous hours against the UNAN Managua and the nearby Divina Misericordia Catholic Church, university student Gerald José Vásquez López, age 20, was shot in the head outside the church.

September 21: An attack on the Blue and White March, organized to demand the release of political prisoners, took a new victim: 16-year-old Matt Andrés Romero, a fourth-year high school student who received a fatal shot to the thorax that caused internal hemorrhaging.

Ciudad Sandino

Ciudad Sandino, 12 km from the capital city, is one of the nine municipalities of the department of Managua.  The population of 131,316 people (2018) is 97% urban and 3% rural. Manufacturing and food industries predominate.

April 20: Four people were killed during protests by residents in zones 4, 7 and 9.

Between 2:45 and 3:15 pm. Moroni Jacob López García, a 22-year-old medical student at UNAN-León and English professor, was shot on the grounds of the Managua Cathedral after providing first aid to students entrenched in the nearby UNI.

Between 4:00 and 5:00 pm. Marlon Manases Martínez Ramírez, age 20, a draftsman, carpenter and masonry assistant, was killed by a shot to the head in the northern grounds of the UNI after the entry of pro-government groups and police.

At 6:30 pm, pro-government supporters on motorcycles shot Nelson Enrique Téllez Huete in the chest, a 35-year-old father of four, while he was guarding his taxi to elude the repression. Téllez died on May 12, after 12 days in the hospital.  His friend, 24-year-old Juan Kayko Martínez—who had written on his Facebook page the famous quote by poet Leonel Rugama who, when ordered to surrender by Somoza’s National Guard, shouted, “Tell your mother to surrender!”—was also shot in the chest.

Ticuantepe

Ticuantepe is a municipality of the department of Managua, located 18 kilometers south of the capital.  Its population is 24,377 people, 39% urban and 61% rural.

April 20-21: Anti-riot police repressed the protests in three attacks with rubber bullets, tear gas, sound bombs and other projectiles.

April 21: At 8:45 pm Jeisson Chavarría Urbina, from the community of San Pedro, a student and caponero (three-wheeled taxi driver), was killed while being detained by paramilitaries, one of whom shot him in the face.

June 6: At 6:00 am, independent protesters set up a roadblock at the Ticuantepe traffic circle between km. 13 and 14 on the Managua-Masaya Highway, one of the boundaries of the capital, to impede access by anti-riot police and paramilitaries to Masaya, Granada and Rivas.

June 19: Paramilitaries armed with shotguns and AK-47 automatic rifles demolished that roadblock as part of what was called “Operation Clean-up”.

August: An independent citizen engaged in what he called “a Blue and White walk” from the Juan Ramón Padilla Park, visiting several neighborhoods and communities.  It was the fifth activity after the assault on the Ticuantepe roadblock, according to residents.

Tipitapa

This municipality of the department of Managua is located 22 km north of the capital and has a population of 130,627 inhabitants, 84% urban and 16% rural.

April 19: Richard Eduardo Pavón Bermúdez, a 17-year-old fifth-year high school student at the García Laviana Institute, was killed by 9 gunshot wounds when pro-government groups and police repressed the protest in front of the Municipal Government building.

April 20: Hammer Joel García Salinas a 19-year-old Tipitapa-born university student and worker in the free-trade zone’s Centrolac factory, was killed by a shot in the back while participating in a protest.

May 16: Humberto Antonio Parrales Reyes, a 40-year-old distributor for the Pepsi company, and his 19-year-old stepson, student Noel Calderón Lagos, who had entrenched themselves in the UPOLI, were ambushed, tortured and killed by paramilitaries when they left the campus to buy medicines for the medical post set up by students.

May 21: Independent protesters set up roadblocks in the sector of Las Maderas, located near San Benito.

June 2: Geovanni Miguel Reyes Mena, a 29-year-old shop owner, and his 35-year-old friend Franklin Mercado, were killed by shots to the head while at a barricade in front of the Gaspar García Laviana high school, when it was attacked by hooded paramilitaries riding in three Hilux pickup trucks.

June 4: During an attack on a barricade near AGRICORP, store owner Salvador de Jesús Arévalo Martínez, was killed by two bullets to the back fired from a Hilux pickup truck belonging to the Municipal Government.  Arévalo took water and food to the people guarding the barricade.  Wounded, he was transferred to the Yolanda Mayorga Hospital in Tipitapa, and was then sent to the Carlos Marx Hospital in Managua, where he died.

June 10: Paramilitaries, Sandinista Youth members and police carrying high-caliber weapons attacked the roadblock of the Las Maderas community.  A house-by-house hunt was carried out, and a “de facto” curfew was imposed when pro-government groups began a siege against the homes of residents.

June 14:  In the heat of the national work stoppage, 22-year-old Ezequiel Martínez, a worker in the free-trade zone, was shot to death in an attack by police and paramilitaries on the barricades and roadblocks in the Orontes Centeno neighborhood.  Martínez bled to death where he fell.

June 24: José Eduardo Trujillo Vanegas, a 19-year-old worker/caponera driver, died of two bullet wounds to the chest when police and anti-riot forces attacked the San Jorge neighborhood in pursuit of those supporting the barricades and roadblocks.