Junior Gaitan, Originally from the El Repliga neighborhood, in the city of Masaya, he turned five years old on Friday, June 2, having been assassinated in the context of the social protests of 2018.
The 15-year-old student was murdered near the Ciudad de las Flores Handicrafts Market, while —according to witnesses— he was protesting with other Nicaraguans against the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
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Despite the demand for justice, the crime continues in impunity to this day. The minor’s parents point to a police officer as being the one who shot the teenager.
«The government of Daniel Ortega is responsible for the death of our son; He was a child with a great future ahead of him, he liked sports a lot, but now he is no longer with us because the Police killed him,” he said in an interview with Article 66 Aura Lila López, mother of the opponent.
Gaitán’s relatives have taken advantage of each anniversary of the murder to carry out some activity and thus honor his memory, among which are to flower the tomb where his remains rest, however they have been the object of constant police and paramilitary siege.
In April 2022, the relatives of “Pollito”, as Gaitán is affectionately called, denounced that the Police raided their home without a warrant.
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“Three patrols came, the riot police surrounded the entire street, they did not let anyone pass. They took our cell phones; They told my dad that he will sit down and not say anything. The children who were in the fours took them out and put them in rows. They took some T-shirts from my mother that have the child’s photo, a Nicaraguan flag and another from AMA (Association Mothers of April),” one of Junior Gaitán’s sisters stressed to this media outlet.
Gaitan is one of the 29 girls, boys and adolescents who have been murdered in Nicaragua, according to the Nicaraguan Coordinating Federation of NGOs that Work with Children and Adolescents (CODENI).
To date none of those murdered in 2018, for which the Ortega regime is blamed, have received justice. This means of communication tried to communicate with the adolescent’s relatives, however contact could not be established.
