Jarod Daniel Ramirez Cerda, was an 18-year-old man, originally from Managua, “an exceptional kid, athletic and with a spirit of improvement.” This is how his mother, Raquel Cerda, describes it, but his life was gone in seconds when — according to his mother — after members of the Sandinista Youth (JS) murdered him in his room at home .
On Tuesday, March 21, Ramírez Cerda celebrated 56 months of being assassinated, “when on Thursday, June 21, 2018, at around 12:00 p.m., three armed and hooded individuals, aboard a motorcycle, pointed a gun at Jarod, that he had gone out for a moment at the door of the house, ”says Raquel Cerda.
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The hooded men took the young man to the back of the house, in the room where his mother was. The assassins —according to an eyewitness— identified themselves as JS (Sandinista Youth), a name used by one of the mobs of the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime.
“-They said- that they were looking for weapons, they rebuked Jarod to tell them where he had the weapons, they turned everything around, insisting that we had no weapons, -one of the subjects- pointed it directly at me, but my son throws me, he turns around and hits me. he tells Jarod, “I told you I was going to kill you. This happens to you for putting up barricades and being a protester.” He did not listen to my pleas and while they were retreating, they fired three shots at him at point-blank range, “said the mother of the murdered young man, through a post on AMA’s social networks.
The mother and only witness to the murder against her son said that one of the bullets hit Jarod’s chest, the other two shots hit his abdomen.
«Jarod, he fell to the ground and died right there. I was screaming for help to get him to the Red Cross. A neighbor put him on her motorcycle, but the Red Cross did not attend to him, they left him on the pavement and told me that in order to have the death certificate he had to take him to legal medicine. I was already upset, they took him and the next day the candle was held, around four in the afternoon, “he described.
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According to AMA, before the body of Raquel Cerda Méndez’s only son was buried, she fainted in her husband’s arms and emotionally expressed to her son “Don’t go baby, wait for me! What will happen to you?” my life now?
Who was Jarod Daniel Ramírez Cerda?
Jarod, one of the young people who assassinated the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship in 2018, was in his second year of Communication and Public Relations at the American College University in Managua. His mother describes him as an outstanding student passionate about studying .
He learned English, Mandarin, and played various sports. After he returned from the university, he would go to a gym, located by the Roberto Huembes market, “where he learned boxing and little by little he was collecting and buying his gloves, his boxing materials and at night he would go to do the leagues of boxing. soccer in the parks (…) He learned swimming in Barracudas, he didn’t waste a moment of his time”, highlights Raquel Cerda.
Ramírez Cerda had clear goals. When he finished his Communications degree, he wanted to study Dentistry and pay for it with his money.
«He had many dreams, he wanted to make money, to buy his house, he dreamed of having a home, always with me, protecting his aunt Rosa. Jarod, he was a friendly, friendly, sociable boy, he talked to everyone, he was charitable, with all the drunkards, old people, with the grandparents, for those people who were begging for homelessness, he gave them food. On the day of his wake, everyone came to see him, they cried for him, for his “broder”, “his mother recounted.
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Jarod Ramírez was the only son of Raquel Cerda, who affirms that for years she searched for that longed-for son. «It was the most wonderful thing that God gave me the 18 years that I had him with me. My son grew up in a humble family but with values, even though one had his economic needs, he set out to be something in this life, to get ahead ».
«My son was the head of the house, where many nephews (children and adolescents) live, he was a beacon for them, they all wanted to be like Jarod: “I want to be like Jarod, I’m going to be like Jarod, I’m going where Jarod is going, that I want to do this because Jarod does it, “” he said.
When asked why did the JS come to look for Jarod to kill him if he stayed out of the social protests? One of his family’s hypotheses is that the agents of the Nicaraguan regime could have confused him with another of their cousins who were in the marches, at the barricades by the El Edén Bridge, one of the targets of the so-called clean-up operation, which the Ortega government had launched since June 12 in Managua.
Both Raquel Cerda and Madres de Abril continue to demand justice for the crime that remains unpunished to this day. According to Susana López, mother of Gerald Vásquez, a young man murdered on July 14, 2018, they will not stop demanding that the international community and human organizations bring to the dock the dictators of Nicaragua, accused of crimes against humanity.
The social protests of 2018 left more than 300 murdered, according to human rights defenders, none of the perpetrators is in custody.