This June 16, 2022 marks four years of the crime against the family Velasquez Pavon, an event that shocked Nicaragua. In 2018, in the midst of social protests against the Daniel Ortega regime, a group of unknown individuals set fire to the three-story house located in the Carlos Marx neighborhood in Managua. Inside were the six people, who later became fatalities.
At that time, witnesses and relatives denounced that those responsible were armed parastatal agents and police officers at the service of the Sandinista government.
Related news: Three years have passed since the crime against a family that burned to death in the Carlos Marx neighborhood
The event was reported internationally. Two burned children and four more adults was the scene that was repeated. Until today, the Nicaraguan justice has not clarified the crime that mourned the entire country.
The attack 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, and minors Matias Eliseo Velasquezfour months, and Dayerli Osmarythree years old.
Designated regime of crime
According to information provided to the media, the Velásquez Pavón family was dedicated to the sale of mattresses. In a video of a live broadcast on the Facebook platform, one of the survivors identified as Cinthya Velasquez cried out 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», Said the children’s aunt in the midst of tears.
Velásquez assured, in the video, that she managed to get out alive together with another young woman because she jumped from the balcony and pointed directly at the Daniel Ortega regime for the murder of her entire family; However, months later, the same woman gave statements to the official media, changing her discourse 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 got out of jail,” he mentioned in reference to the political prisoners who were released in 2019.
They condemn impunity
Given these four years of impunity, the Nicaraguan Never Again Human Rights Collective qualifies the actions against the capital family as a crime against humanity.
Related news: Impunity reigns, two years after the crime of the family that burned to death in the Carlos Marx neighborhood
“This is a crime against humanity that remains unpunished, as well as the arbitrary executions of at least 355 people in 2018. In our memory are the arbitrary arrests of thousands of people, political prisoners subjected to torture, cruel treatment , inhuman and degrading,” he revealed.
Human rights defenders stressed that the relatives of disappeared opponents, of the more than 200,000 people in exile and of survivors, persist and do not desist in “their legitimate demand” for truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition.
They also affirm that they continue in their commitment to continue in the fight for justice, freedom and democracy; “We demand the end of the repression and the freedom of the 190 political prisoners in Nicaragua,” they demanded.
Currently, the house of the Velázquez Pavón family looks abandoned and with the evidence of the terror action against a family that was shown on social networks as opponents of the Ortega regime. According to what was known, the house is for sale.
