The holes caused by the bullets in the walls, windows and in images in the Divina Misericordia church in Managua are faithful testimony to the violent siege by government forces against opposition students in July 2018, one of the bloodiest episodes of the political crisis that left 355 dead in Nicaragua.
The most notable violence is the holes in the tabernacle and in the image of Christ in the temple, with three bullet holes, one in the chest and two in his clothing, from which flashes of light seem to emanate.
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That image of the Christ of Divine Mercy was brought from Poland. It is a replica of the original from that date, so it has remained. Although the temple never closed its doors, the presence of the faithful is almost nil despite the religious activities.
Neighbors and parishioners fear being detained or captured by plainclothes police and security agents who pass through the area.
merciless bullets
It all started when students from the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) entrenched themselves in the compound for weeks until combined troops of police, paramilitaries and active military stormed the barricades with weapons of war.
The entrenched resisted for a few hours, but in the afternoon, after hours of fire, they took refuge inside the temple and were trapped together with priests and journalists for about 12 hours, during which they were besieged by paramilitaries who fired firearms.
There were 15 hours of merciless bullet attacks. The order was to kill.
One of the survivors of that attack, now anonymous from Managua, remembers that he ran with five other students to seek refuge in the church but they could not get there, so a neighbor opened a garage door for them almost in front of the church.
From there they saw and heard the entire attack. “They were policemen who were directing. They used radio transmitters and police codes. They went around with drones, trained dogs and ski masks. Every moment they asked for more ammunition because they were unloading everything against the church”, he recalls.
That night, after 12, power was cut off in the residential area and the rifle attacks continued until dawn.
«We were left in the dark and we all spent lying on the garage floor. Boots ran back and forth. The neighbor was terrified that they would enter his house and discover us », he recalls.
15 hours of horror
His mind recalls that prior to the assault on UNAN “there was a siege every day. Almost all the roadblocks in Managua had already fallen and we knew they were coming for us.
That night, after 12 hours of siege and attack, the assault ended due to the efforts of Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, the diplomatic corps, and human rights organizations.
In total, there were 15 hours of anguish and uncertainty: “inside, everyone expected that at any moment they were going to come in to kill us.”
The bullets of different calibers whizzed through the windows and ricocheted off the walls, shelling the walls and falling to the floor, on the banks of the students who had taken refuge in the Divine Mercy Parish and remained lying on the floor.
The most dramatic moment was when their classmates told them that they had killed two students: Gerald Vázquez and Francisco José Flores, executed by snipers.
Three more were injured and one of them was in serious condition and was bleeding to death inside the temple, but they were allowed to leave at dawn when a Red Cross ambulance was authorized to take out a foreign journalist who was trapped inside.
“One of the injured girls escaped from the hospital blindfolded and thus arrived in Costa Rica, limping,” says this witness.
Do not forget
Five years after that episode of terror, this survivor says that all his fellow students from that time are in exile. «What happened that night will remain in the memory of all of us who were there. I still have nightmares, look… », he says.
The traces of the bullet wounds in the image of Cristo de la Misericordia, which were shown to the whole world together with the marks in other areas of the church, remain intact as an indelible symbol of a Christ attacked by bullets by a cruel dictatorship.
By: United Voices.
