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At least 22 Nicaraguan dissidents of the Ortega-Murillo regime were abducted by the National Police between the night of Thursday, August 14, and Friday, August 15, 2025, according to preliminary information from sources close to the detainees’ families and from the Blue and White Monitoring organization.
The arbitrary arrests occurred mainly in the departments of Carazo and Masaya, but there are also reports of police abductions in Granada and Rivas.
According to witnesses of the raids, the operations and searches—carried out without judicial warrants—were “violent,” with police “destroying” property, “stealing belongings,” and using police dogs.
Among those detained are former political prisoners, outspoken regime critics, returned exiles, artists, businesspeople, and community leaders.
In Carazo, on August 15, painter Marvin Campos and his son, engineer Marvin Campos Aburto, were detained. The latter had been in exile and had recently returned to Nicaragua.
Also arrested were Renato Ortiz and his father, Joaquín Ortiz, as well as Chester Cortes and Maria Jose Rojas. Rojas is the daughter of opposition member Rodolfo Rojas Cordero, who was murdered in Honduras in 2022.
On the night of August 14, Mario Rodríguez and Alder Lopez Luna were detained; Lopez had recently returned from Honduras in an attempt to “normalize” his life in Nicaragua, according to the sources.
In Carazo, there were also reports of three homes being raided during the early hours of Friday. The owners of two of the homes are in custody, and their relatives requested anonymity. The third home belongs to a citizen residing in the United States.
Blue and White Monitoring reported that on August 13, citizens Luis Francisco Ortiz Calero and Yolanda del Carmen Gonzalez Escobar were abducted in Masaya.
Arbitrary Arrests Without Judicial Warrants
The organization warned that in recent days they have received numerous reports of arbitrary detentions in various departments of the country carried out by the National Police, in what appear to be coordinated operations against the civilian population.
“These detentions are carried out violently, with home invasions, even in the presence of children,” the group denounced in a statement released on its social media.
They emphasized that at the time of the arrests, the authorities provide no explanation, present no arrest or search warrants, and in several cases have seized digital devices without any justification.
“When families go to the police stations, they face a refusal to provide information about their loved ones, which further increases the violation of rights and deepens an environment of terror and helplessness,” the organization stressed.
Political prisoners in Nicaragua
It was precisely in Carazo, on July 17, that five critics of the Nicaraguan government were arrested in the context of the 46th anniversary of the popular Sandinista revolution and after Ortega ordered to “capture” and “prosecute” those who “conspire” against his government, which he has presided over since 2007.
As of July 15, at least 54 dissidents and critics of Nicaragua’s regime remained in the country’s prisons, including eighteen senior citizens, according to the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners, a coordinating body of human rights activists whose data is endorsed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
The list includes former Sandinista revolution commander Henry Ruiz, confined to his home by the Nicaraguan Police since March 8, 2025, as well as Ortega’s former advisor and retired general, Alvaro Baltodano.
Others listed include indigenous leaders Brooklyn Rivera Bryan, Steadman Fagoth Müller and Nancy Elizabeth Henríquez.
Also retired military officers Víctor Boitano and Eddie Moisés González Valdivia, and journalists Fabiola Tercero and Leo Cárcamo, among others.
In light of this new wave of detentions, Blue and White Monitoring demanded that the Nicaraguan authorities immediately end the repression, respect the human rights of the detainees, their families, and children, and immediately release all those unjustly deprived of their liberty.
