Nicaraguans in Costa Rica Commemorate 2018 Mother's Day Massacre

A symbolic coffin with the Nicaraguan flag along with photographs of young people killed in the protests against President Daniel Ortega in 2018 led in Costa Rica, where thousands of exiles live, a vigil to commemorate the sixth anniversary of a massacre that occurred on Mother's Day.

In the parish of La Merced, in the heart of San José, Nicaraguans living in Costa Rica gathered to pay tribute to the 16 who died in 2018 on Mother's Day, which is celebrated in Nicaragua on May 30.

"We commemorate the sixth anniversary of that atrocious day, which was the greatest pain for mothers, the murder of their children," Azucena López, a Nicaraguan exiled in Costa Rica and member of the April Mothers Association, said. which brings together women who lost their children in the protests.

Ortega assures that the demonstrations, which broke out in April 2018 and left more than 300 dead in three months according to the United Nations, were an attempted coup d'état sponsored by Washington and supported by a sector of the clergy.

López relates that on Mother's Day 2018, young people had called on mothers "to join a march" and assured that the government repressed it with gunfire.

We must "remember our children who were murdered" and their fight for "a Nicaragua without dictatorship," she added.

In addition to the tribute, there was also a mass celebrated by two Nicaraguan priests exiled in Costa Rica, Harving Padilla and Uriel Vallejos, both stripped of their nationality by the Ortega government.

"Nicaragua came out peacefully to protest in 2018 but the repression was cruel, very harsh. Nicaragua will not forgive what Daniel Ortega and his wife have done," Vallejos said.

There are strong tensions between the Catholic Church and the Ortega government. During the last Christmas and New Year holidays, around twenty clerics were arrested, then released from prison on January 14 and sent to Rome, following an agreement with the Vatican.