Death toll rises in Nicaragua protests

President Ortega says he’ll make changes to sweeping social security

More than 20 people have been killed in a wave of protests shaking Nicaragua, a local human rights body said Sunday.

The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights said it was still trying to verify figures, but that at least 20 people had been killed since protests erupted in the central American country on Wednesday over pension reform.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said on Saturday he was ready to consider changing an unpopular social security overhaul that has sparked days of deadly protests and one of the biggest crises of his leadership.

Late on Saturday, local media said a reporter was shot and killed during a live broadcast from Bluefields, a town on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast that has been hit by the violence.

Graphic footage of the incident quickly spread onto local and social media.

Earlier, Ortega said the benefit changes were not due to take effect until July 1, giving the government time to arrange talks with the private sector to review them.

“We’ll have to see what change can be made to this decree or whether we need to do a new one,” he said in a televised address.

“Hopefully, we can find a better way of making this change,” he added. “Maybe we can find ways of covering part of what is being applied to workers and especially to pensioners.”

Still, top Nicaraguan private sector lobby COSEP issued a statement afterwards saying it could not enter into talks until the government put a stop to police repression, released people who had been detained for protesting peacefully and re-established unrestricted freedom of speech.

“We urge the government to create these conditions immediately to avoid more bloodshed,” COSEP said.

The Red Cross says hundreds have been injured.

Police have used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters, and disturbances continued in Managua on Saturday.

Most of the deaths have been due to firearms, said Lissett Guido, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in the Americas.

Guido could not confirm reports that at least 25 people had died, and said any other fatalities must have occurred in areas the Red Cross had not reached.