Five men were shot to death in the department of Jinotega in the first 15 days of 2023, the portal reported. CSI Mosaic. The events occurred in the municipalities of San José de Bocay, Wiwilí and El Cuá, the motivations have not been clarified by the police institution, but according to the publication, since 2018 the increase in murders in the area is notorious.
The portal reports that the recent news about these events have been titled as follows: “He died from bullet wounds to the head, neck and chest, inflicted by persons still unidentified”, “shot to death by two unknown persons”, “shot to death on the side of the road”, “died from a bullet to the neck that his neighbor allegedly inflicted on him”, “found dead on the night of this Sunday, January 15, on a road in the Las Quebradas community”.
Lethal violence increases
The sociologist and expert on security issues, Elvira Cuadra, who has been monitoring the lethal violence in Nicaragua since the end of 2018 after what was called “Operation Cleaning,” told Mosaico CSI that they have identified that in Wiwilí, San Jose de Bocay and El Cuá have a particular situation with a high incidence of murders.
Cuadra, who is director of the Center for Transdisciplinary Studies of Central America (Cetcam), points out that at the end of 2018 and 2019 they observed that a significant percentage of the murders in that area were related to political motives.
However, in 2020 the situation apparently changed and what is now observed is that the murders are linked to common crime motivations, such as personal disputes, assaults, among others.
“We have identified that from 2020 to here there is a lot of fear among people to give information or clearly state the motivations for the murders of their relatives, we do not really know if it is for political reasons or they are merely a matter of criminality and common delinquency, but , the truth is that this high incidence of lethal violence is maintained in that area, but at this moment there is no capacity to be able to delve into how, why and what is the difference with other municipalities or other towns in the country”, explained Cuadra.
murders and violence
A report published by Mosaico in 2019 revealed that during that year in a period of eight months in Jinotega there were 78 murders, 80 percent of them occurred in the municipalities of El Cuá, San José de Bocay and Wiwilí, which make up the so-called Corridor of the Contras, of the eighties.
In 2018, the figures of the Police registered 76 murders in the department of Jinotega.
In the 2021 yearbook, the Police reported 3,777 crimes committed in the department of Jinotega, 1,454 more than those registered in 2020. As for the murders, there were 35 that the police institution documented, as well as 45 homicides, four parricides, two reckless homicides and only one femicide.
Crimes increase in Jinotega and Matagalpa does not escape
According to the sociologist, the trend is for common crime to continue to increase throughout the country, with Managua, Matagalpa and the North Caribbean Autonomous Region being the geographical areas with the highest incidence of acts of violence linked to criminality and common violence.
“Matagalpa had this characteristic before 2018, there was a very brief period that dropped a bit, but it is presenting the same characteristics, what we can say is that the trend continues and it is increasing,” Cuadra explained to Mosaico CSI.
The Police statistical yearbook recorded 10,123 crimes committed in the department of Matagalpa, 1,875 more than those registered in 2020. In this case, in 2021 they documented nine murders, 31 homicides, two parricides, and two reckless homicides.
security in the region
The sociologist explains that, in Central America in the last decade there has been a change in terms of citizen security and Nicaragua has not been exempt, even before 2018 a marked trend was already being observed in relation to the change in security threats.
According to Cuadra, in the changes that were already being carried out, delinquency and common crime appeared in the first order with increasing data in relation to the increase in assaults, femicides, sexual violence and road safety. Secondly, organized crime and particularly drug trafficking and other expressions of it such as human trafficking, which does not have as high statistics as other types of crimes, but is significant and worrying for Nicaragua, and lastly, the political violence that has already been It had been giving since before 2018.
However, the scenario changed with the social outbreak of 2018 and the repressive response of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, these threats and risks changed, state political violence became the element of greatest threat to citizens after common crime. and organized crime.
“Then not only the order of threats changed, but all forms of political violence and crimes such as murders, particularly in rural areas, assaults, robberies, femicides, violence in general against women, sexual violence against girls, increased. and adolescents, and it worsened more in the time of the pandemic, the statistics rose, especially in criminality and common delinquency, ”says Cuadra.
The expert explains that with the change in violent events, insecurity, the perception of insecurity and fear among the general population also increased, which has been observed in surveys over the last five years.
In Cuadra’s opinion, the State, which is the one that must guarantee citizen security, in Nicaragua has become a main agent of fear and insecurity for the population, a kind of catalyst for other forms of violence.
“For example, the presence of paramilitary groups is an incentive that exists, because the State is permissive, there is impunity on the part of the State, the fact that the Police, which is a public institution, instead of carrying out the functions established in the law and that are related to the protection of citizens and the prevention of crime, is busy ensuring a policy of repression against citizens becomes an incentive or dynamizer of other forms of violence”, stated the researcher .
