The Nicaraguan government blamed the leaders of the 2018 opposition protests this Friday for causing numerous victims and millions of damages, on the anniversary of the start of those mobilizations.
“There was no peaceful protest but a violent attempt to overthrow the legal and legitimately constituted government,” said the vice president and wife of President Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo, to official media.
The 2018 protests led to three months of street blockades and clashes between opponents and pro-government supporters, which left more than 300 dead, according to the UN.
“The terrorist coup caused losses in the national economy of 22,361.7 million dollars” and caused the loss of 140,995 formal jobs, investment flows of 1,340 million dollars and damages of 640 million dollars in the tourism sector, stated the vice president. . .
“That amount is equivalent to the impact of 28 hurricanes Eta or Iota, 11 pandemics, three hurricanes Mitch and only compared to the earthquake” that destroyed Managua in 1972, Murillo added.
The government assures that it was an attempted coup d’état sponsored by the United States and that “198 brothers left their lives, of which 22 were members of our national police” and 1,240 people were injured by firearms, Murillo said. .
Related news: Murillo’s hate speech against the opposition is “a product of the traumas” about the April rebellion, critics say
The National Assembly, aligned with the Ortega government, declared April 19 last week as “National Day of Peace.” For this reason, Sandinista militants held marches and festivals in different parts of the country this Friday.
Dozens of opponents were imprisoned after the protests and in 2023, 222 members of the opposition were released from prison, expelled from the country and stripped of their nationality. Last year, another 94 people, including politicians, lawyers and human rights activists, were also stripped of their nationality.
The United States and the European Union maintain sanctions on the Ortega government, which returned to power in 2007 and has been re-elected in elections questioned by the international community.
Related news: Murillo and his “rosary” of insults to the Church, opposition and the United States
