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(CNN Spanish) - More than 100,000 people have been forced to leave Nicaragua and seek asylum in other countries due to the persecution or violation of their human rights since the beginning of the political and social crisis in April 2018, according to a report by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Migration has different faces. UNHCR has identified students, human rights defenders, peasants and journalists. According to the agency, about 4,000 people flee the country each month. The agency believes that this amount can increase if there is no way out of the crisis in Nicaragua.
Daniel Ortega's government has not officially spoken about the number of people in exile. In the framework of the second attempt at national dialogue, in April 2019, it announced the approval and execution of an Assisted Voluntary Return program, whose objective was to achieve the return of thousands of people who fled the country based on the events recorded since April from 2018.
CNN requested information on the results of this program from the Communication and Citizenship Council, which is coordinated by Vice President Rosario Murillo, but have not yet responded to the request. They also did not respond to a request for comment on UNHCR's report.
Pablo Emilio Cuevas, lawyer for the Permanent Commission on Human Rights, considers that the political persecution for participation in the protests and the lack of employment forces thousands of Nicaraguans to seek other horizons, and the State, according to him, does not create the conditions for security or guarantee work places.
Josué Garay, a journalist who was exiled in Costa Rica, considers that these figures may be higher, since he knows dozens of people who flee Nicaragua through blind spots on land borders. It also states that there are no security conditions for the return of many of them.
According to the UNHCR report, 77,000 people have applied for asylum in Costa Rica, 8,000 fled to Panama and 9,000 to Europe. While Mexico welcomes 3,600 people and 5,100 are in other countries. The agency registered a total of 103,600 Nicaraguan refugees or asylum seekers from April 2018 to March 2020.
UNHCR