The regime of Daniel Ortega executed this Wednesday, July 6, the expulsion of 18 Missionaries of Charity, an order founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who were transferred from Managua and Granada to the border with Costa Rica by the General Directorate of Migration and Immigration ( DGME) and the Police.
Of the 18 missionaries, seven are from India, two from Mexico, one from Spain, two from Guatemala, one from Ecuador, one from Vietnam, two from the Philippines and two Nicaraguans.
On June 28, it became known about his forced departure from the country, after the Parliament dominated by the Sandinista Front canceled the legal status of his association and closed his charities. A sister had assured that they could not continue in Nicaragua, but they did not have a specific deadline to leave the country, therefore, they were waiting for the communication from Migration.
Before six in the morning on Wednesday, a police device surrounded the entrances to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Home, in Granada, where six missionaries remained and according to the testimonies of the neighbors, “some white vehicles arrived.” A patrol stationed it at the main entrance, while two riot police stood at the gate of the Home.
There were two patrols, about 15 officers and at least four traffic policemen who placed cones at the different entrances to the Home, residents of the area assured CONFIDENTIAL, and confirmed that they were still in the building, the same one that had been under siege since last week, when the sisters delivered supplies to the local population.
The Missionaries of Charity Association ran a nursery, a home for abused or abandoned girls, a nursing home, and carried out a school reinforcement project, which they began to close on June 15.
This July 4th Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes lamented the closure and dissolution of the Association Missionaries of Charity. “We deeply regret the pain of so many of our brothers who will no longer have the attention they received from the sisters,” Cardinal Brenes said in a public statement.
Brenes, also archbishop of the archdiocese of Managua, stressed that “the foundation of the Missionary Sisters of Charity of Santa Teresa de Calcutta” provided assistance “to the poorest of our Nicaraguan society.”
Migob’s arguments against the Missionaries of Charity
According to a report from the Migob’s General Directorate of Registration and Control of Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs), the Missionaries of Charity “have failed to comply with their obligations” under the law that regulates them, and the Money Laundering Law, the Financing of Terrorism and the Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The Government maintained that the Missionaries of Charity are not accredited by the Ministry of Family to function as a nursery, child development center or girls’ home or nursing home, nor do they have permission from the Ministry of Education to carry out learning reinforcement.
In addition, it affirms that they did not report fixed assets, and the activities of its headquarters in the city of Granada, located in the southwest of the country, were not communicated: girls’ home, dining room, nursery and learning reinforcement. However, these activities were known to the Government, which was even highlighted through a report published in an official media, in August 2016, in the context of the canonization of the founder of the Order.
The Migob points out that the balances of income from donations do not coincide with those reported in the reports presented, and they do not present formal accounting of their assets with generally accepted accounting systems, according to official information.
Another reason to dissolve that NGO, alleged the Government, is that the board of directors is made up solely of citizens of other nationalities, and the new law that regulates them —Law 1115—, in force for two months, establishes that only 25% of the people who make up the board may be foreigners.
