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On May 30th, thousands of Nicaraguans gathered in the capital city of Managua for a peaceful Mother's Day march, honoring the mothers of victims of state violence. In response, Nicaraguan authorities opened fire on the crowd, killing at least 15 and injuring many more. The video below features first-hand accounts and eye-witness footage from the Mother's Day Massacre.
WARNING: this video contains graphic images of violence.
The Mother's Day Massacre is just one example of how protests spreading across the country have been meet with increasing state violence. TheNicaraguan Center for Human Rights reports that as of June 6, 2018, there are127 dead, 1,000 injured, and 438 detained or disappeared.
These atrocities are outlined in a new Amnesty International report,
Shoot to kill: Nicaragua’s Strategy to Suppress Protest:
"Nicaraguan authorities have adopted a strategy of repression, characterized by the excessive use of force, extrajudicial executions, control of the media, and the use of pro-government armed groups, to crush protests. This report documents the Nicaraguan police’s use of lethal weapons, the large numbers of people injured by firearms, the trajectory of shots fired, the concentration of bullet wounds in the head, neck and chest of those killed, and attempts to obstruct justice and cover up the nature of the killings. These patterns have led the organization to conclude that there is evidence that police and pro-government armed groups committed multiple extrajudicial executions."
- Amnesty International