The Nicaraguan government on Tuesday said that forces loyal to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega have seized control of the opposition stronghold city of Masaya, following fierce clashes with activists in the flashpoint neighborhood of Monimbo that rights groups say left at least two people dead.
Police and government-backed paramilitaries launched the organized attack on Masaya, as international calls mounted for an end to months of deadly violence in the Central American nation.
“Today was the turn of Monimbo, Masaya, which now has streets that have been liberated from blockades,” the government said on its Web site, adding that now people can “move freely.”
Photo: Reuters
Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights secretary Alvaro Leiva said that the pro-Ortega forces had taken control of the city after several hours of combat and “excessive use of force.”
At least two people were killed — an adult woman and a police officer, Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights head Vilma Nunez said.
The offensive on Masaya came on the heels of a bloody siege of student protesters holed up in a church in the capital, Managua, over the weekend, suggesting Ortega was intensifying the use of lethal force to quell dissent.
His government says it is carrying out a “liberation” of towns and cities where protesters have been active.
Police and masked paramilitary units toting assault rifles on Tuesday sealed off all roads leading to Monimbo, from which gunfire could be heard. Videos posted on social media showed rebels inside the zone firing back, some with homemade mortars.
State media confirmed the death of the policeman, but gave no other toll from the assault.
A group of journalists, including Agence France-Presse, that tried to enter Monimbo to verify the situation were shot at by pro-government gunmen to prevent them approaching.
More than 1,000 men firing automatic weapons entered the city of 100,000 people early on Tuesday, residents said.
“They’re attacking us from various entry points in Monimbo,” Cristian Fajardo, a leader of a student protest movement, said in a WhatsApp message.
“They’re attacking Monimbo! The bullets are reaching the Maria Magdalena parish church, where the priest is sheltered,” archbishop Silvio Baez wrote on Twitter.
“May Daniel Ortega stop the massacre! People of Monimbo I beg you, save yourselves!” he wrote.
The US warned Ortega against pursuing the assault on Masaya.
It called for a halt to the deadly crackdown on anti-government protests that has left about 280 people dead over the past three months.
“We strongly urge President Ortega not to attack Masaya,” tweeted Francisco Palmieri, the US principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Western hemisphere affairs.
“Continued gov’t-instigated violence and bloodshed in #Nicaragua must end immediately. The world is watching,” he wrote.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS