Indigenous Peoples on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua are facing an increasingly dire situation, Right Livelihood and Platform of Indigenous Peoples and Afro-Descendants warned in a joint statement delivered at the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The organisations highlighted recent data reporting that the Nicaraguan government has committed 705 human rights violations and 25 murders of Indigenous people in the past 5 years.
Read the entire joint statement here.
Since the onset of political repression by the Nicaraguan government in 2018, Indigenous communities have suffered from severe human rights violations. From armed violence by settlers in indigenous territories to the forced displacement of countless families, attacks against Indigenous people in the Central American country have led to a humanitarian crisis.
In Right Livelihood’s first joint statement at the 55th session of the Council, we highlighted an especially horrifying incident from March 2023 in which approximately 60 armed settlers attacked the Mayangna indigenous community in Wilú. The settlers murdered five community members, destroyed and looted homes, and sacrificed domestic animals, we told the Council.
And yet, these horrific acts of violence are far from unusual in Nicaragua. According to local indigenous organisations spanning more than 60 communities, 1,198 indigenous people were victimised in similar incidents between 2018 and 2023. The organisations documented more than 705 human rights violations and 25 murders during the same period.
Among the most common human rights violations, we told the Council, are the right to physical, mental and moral integrity, as well as to community property.
Despite the clear documentation of human rights violations by local groups, Nicaraguan authorities refuse to act, opting to remain silent and thereby encouraging further acts of violence by settlers, livestock farmers, and mining companies.
Right Livelihood closed the joint statement by urging the members of the Council to intensify their scrutiny of Nicaragua and its violations of national and international human rights law. Even though the situation for Indigenous Peoples in Nicaragua is among the Council’s top priority areas, the situation continues to worsen.
