Nicaragua crisis toll rises as plan for talks in limbo

MANAGUA: The death toll resulting from Nicaragua’s escalating crisis rose over the weekend to at least 139, according to a top rights group.

Opposition activist Juan Gutierrez, 28, died during an attack on a barricade he was fighting to defend in the municipality of Sebaco, about 90km north of the capital, the Nicaraguan Centre for Human Rights said.

A university coalition attributed the attack to governmentbacked gangs and anti-riot police.

Silvio Romero, vicar of a cathedral here, on Sunday said the Catholic Church continued to wait for a response from President Daniel Ortega concerning a proposal from bishops to revive talks to calm the crisis, which sparked on April 18.

“We have no communication” with Ortega, Romero said.

“People are waiting for an answer, but they are beginning to say that while waiting for a written answer, there is already an answer on the streets,” he said, alluding to the continued repression of protests against Ortega’s leftist government.

The police, meanwhile, said that “armed criminal groups” attacked a police outpost in the municipality of El Jicaral and kidnapped three of officers.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights wrote on Twitter that the government reported the “disappearance” of the agents.

It voiced “concern” while saying “we urge that this situation be clarified”.

On Sunday, at least 127 makeshift roadblocks stood throughout the country, peasant leader Francisca Ramirez said, a strategy protestors were using to pressure the government to find a concrete solution to the political chaos through dialogue.