[ad_1]
PEÑAS BLANCAS, Nicaragua.- Thousands of people flee political violence and transgressions to human rights in Nicaragua after violent repression demonstrations against the government .
To find out more: An Aeromexico plane crashes with 100 passengers in Durango
Read more: Red panda twins are born at the New York State Zoo
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday asked other countries to Help Costa Rica, which has been overwhelmed by thousands of asylum applications .
Giulia Mortrones said that she had gone by bus to the border with Costa Rica because university students like her became the target of the Nicaraguan police.
We were afraid that something would happen to us, Mortrones said while waiting in the city of Peñas Blancas, on the border with Costa Rica. We were fleeing from there (Nicaragua), the National Police, because they follow all the students.
The flight of Nicaraguans has intensified in recent weeks as police and paramilitary forces of President Daniel Ortega have removed the remaining barricades that had interrupted traffic in the country since April.
In July, paramilitary forces attacked students who had taken the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, one of the last strongholds of opposition in Managua, the capital. A few days later, police and armed and masked civilians took the town of Monimbó, Masaya, one hour south of the capital.
People who guarded barricades in their neighborhoods said that government informants had lists of officials or sponsors. Now, the people on these lists are searched and arrested, according to Nicaraguan groups who defend human rights.
Last week in Masaya, dozens of people, mostly women, were waiting in front of a police station to give them information about their loved ones.
A woman, who refused to say her name because she was expecting her son to be released soon, said that he had been arrested a week earlier while He was trying to flee to Costa Rica. The police returned him to Masaya and was the subject of an investigation for his alleged involvement in the barricades.
For his part, student leader Victor Cuadras managed to reach the Costa Rican territory this month, and denounced by phone that there was a warrant arrest against him because He is accused of terrorism. He worked to organize support in order to put pressure on Ortega.
He had already met with former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and legislators from that country.
He indicated that those who managed to flee to Costa Rica or Honduras, pointed out that many had been arrested.
The journalists saw three young Nicaraguans who were ordered to get off a bus to Costa Rica on Tuesday at the Peñas Blancas crossing, apparently for lack of adequate documentation.
The UN office said that Costa Rica receives about 200 asylum applications a day.
The Costa Rican government said nearly 8,000 Nicaraguans had filed such requests since the anti-government protests began in April, and the UN agency said "some 15,000 have been named in order to register later, national processing capacities were exceeded. "
An increase in claims was also detected in Panama, Mexico and the United States.
A 39-year-old Nicaraguan who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation for his family is now in Mexico, seeking political asylum with the Mexican Commission. assistance to refugees.
Interviewed in an immigrant housing center in Mexico City where he resides since his arrival in June, the man said he feared that pro-government paramilitaries or gangs would attack him. he returns to Nicaragua.
He said that he and others in his neighborhood in Managua erected a barricade in May when paramilitaries suddenly started shooting at them. Then another group of young people from the neighborhood opened fire and a shootout erupted.
The man said that he ran to safety, but a friend named Elias was shot in the back while he was trying to escape on a motorcycle. He is afraid that he will be blamed for this death.
They were going to blame us for the bullet that killed Elijah, he said.
The Nicaraguan Association of Human Rights says that nearly 450 people have been killed since the beginning of the protests. President Daniel Ortega said Monday in an interview with CNN that there were 195 deaths.
Ortega gave a new version of one of the most debated aspects of government repression, masses of masked men in plainclothes who fired on those who defended the barricades of the protests. Earlier, the president had denied that they were government paramilitaries, but on Friday he described them as "volunteer police."
He said the protests were a coup attempt by the United States.
