The Nicaraguan Police reported this Friday that they captured a group of people after they invaded indigenous territories in the northern Caribbean of the country, one of the Nicaraguan areas most affected by land tenure.
The arrest occurred on Thursday in the Musawas community, a territory of the Mayangna natives, located in the municipality of Bonanza, in the North Caribbean Autonomous Region (RACN), the National Police said in a statement.
A total of 24 people, 2 of them women, were arrested on the lands of the Alal indigenous people, where they had settled “carrying sharp and blunt objects, machetes, sticks and stones,” according to police information.
The detainees were transferred yesterday to the “Jorge Navarro” prison, known as “La Modelo”, in the city of Tipitapa (Pacific), the largest prison in Nicaragua.
Related news: Confrontation between indigenous people and settlers leaves two injured
The capture of invaders of indigenous lands, whom the natives call “settlers”, was carried out three days after the most recent complaint by the Mayangna Sauni As Autonomous Territorial Government (Gtamsa) about invasions in their territories.
The Gtamsa reported earlier this week that the indigenous people, historically peaceful, resorted to violence to expel the settlers, and demanded concrete actions from the national authorities to stop the invasions on lands that belong to them.
The invasions of settlers in indigenous territories left 11 natives murdered in 2021, according to data from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Acnudh).
A report from the Center for Justice and Human Rights of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua (Cejudhcan) detailed that in the 2010s until January 2021, approximately a thousand Miskito indigenous people were forcibly displaced to other communities, some bordering Honduras. , as well as 46 cases of kidnapping, 4 disappearances, 49 injured people, 8 injured in armed attacks and 2 assaulted girls.
The Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil) has warned that the indigenous populations of Nicaragua are at risk of being exterminated by the constant invasion of their territories.
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Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in Nicaragua live in 304 communities established in 23 territories, the majority in the poorest and most isolated areas of the country, according to official data.
