Five years have passed since the fire at the house in the Carlos Marx neighborhood, in Managua. A crime against the family Velasquez Pavon, which burned six people. This event shocked Nicaragua in 2018 and continues in total impunity. Human rights organizations reiterate their demand for justice for the fatalities of this unfortunate event.
The crime occurred on June 16, 2018. That day a group of unknown persons set fire to the three-story house located in the Carlos Marx neighborhood, near the Polytechnic University of Nicaragua, one of the campuses that was taken over by young people. opponents. The house was surrounded by police and government paramilitaries, and according to what the neighbors denounced at the time, the armed men prevented the entry of ambulances and tankers from the Fire Department, which wanted to put out the flames.
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The event went around the world and shook all of Nicaragua when it saw the bodies of the two children burned and four more adults. Until today, the Nicaraguan justice has not clarified the crime that brought the entire country to mourning.
The attack took place in the context of the social protests of 2018 and took the lives of six members of the Velásquez Pavón family: Oscar Velasquez Pavon, 46 years old; his wife Maritza Lopez Munozthe son of both Alfred26, Alfredo’s wife, mercedes alvarez20 years old, two minors Matias Eliseo Velasquezfour months, and dayerli osmarythree years old.
According to information provided to the media, the Velásquez Pavón family was engaged in the sale of mattresses. In a video of a live broadcast on the Facebook platform, one of the survivors identified as Cinthya Velasquez He screamed for help and pointed to those responsible for the crime: “They burned my house, my whole family is dead, the children, my mom, my dad, are dead… I curse Daniel Ortega and all his descendants,” he said in tears the children’s aunt
Velásquez assured, in the video, that she managed to get out alive along with another young woman because she jumped from the balcony and pointed directly to the Daniel Ortega regime for the murder of her entire family; However, months later, the same woman gave statements to the official media outlets, changing her version and blaming the responsibility on young people who were protesting in the area. “I have not sold myself to the government (…) I forgive the murderers who came out of jail,” she mentioned in reference to the political prisoners who were released in 2019.
They reiterate the demand for justice for the victims
Five years after this massacre, the Nunca Más Nicaragua Human Rights Collective pointed out that “we do not stop denouncing that this crime against humanity continues in impunity, such as the arbitrary executions of at least 355 people.”
“The Collective, together with the people of Nicaragua, continue fighting for justice, freedom and democracy and demanding the cessation of repression and the freedom of all political prisoners in the country,” he added.
For its part, the Center for Inter-American Legal Assistance in Human Rights (CALIDH) demanded that the Ortega administration identify, prosecute and penalize those responsible for the crime in the Carlos Marx neighborhood, in addition, that “the relatives of the victims be fully repaired»
The organization assured that the massacre of the Velásquez Pavón family “will not be forgotten and in a democratic future no episode of cruelty against any human being, especially against children, should ever be repeated.”
