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The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights condemned the death in the custody of the Nicaraguan state of Miskito Indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera, who had been subjected to enforced disappearance since September 2023. The commission also called on the international community to maintain close scrutiny of Nicaragua.
“The IACHR urges the international community to continue monitoring Nicaragua, demand an end to the repression, and ensure accountability for all human rights violations committed in the country that remain unpunished,” the commission said in a statement.
Regarding Rivera’s death, the IACHR said it learned on May 31, 2026, that he had died “after more than two years during which the Nicaraguan regime concealed his whereabouts and refused to provide information about his health condition.”
“This reprehensible act has a collective impact given Brooklyn Rivera’s legacy as a historic leader of the Miskito people and a defender of territorial rights and the autonomy of Indigenous peoples on the Caribbean Coast,” the statement said.
The commission also criticized the government led by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo for failing to return Rivera’s body to his relatives and members of his community who came to claim it. Instead, it said, six of them “were arbitrarily detained and their whereabouts are unknown”.
Alarm Raised Over Political Prisoners
According to the IACHR, Rivera’s death “once again lays bare the grave situation of people detained for political reasons, whose whereabouts and health conditions remain unknown.”
“At what point will they call us to tell us that our loved one has died?” That is the question being asked by the relatives of political prisoners subjected to enforced disappearance in Nicaragua following Rivera’s death in state custody.
The families of five political prisoners also warned that the death of the Miskito Indigenous leader has heightened fears that other detainees held by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo could die under similar circumstances.
The IACHR recalled that in 2025 it condemned the deaths in state custody of Mauricio Alonso Petri and Carlos Cárdenas Zepeda. In both cases, “their families spent weeks without information about their whereabouts or health condition and only learned with certainty of their deaths when their bodies were handed over, amid threats and intimidation.”
In its statement, the commission urged Nicaragua to “guarantee the life and physical integrity of all persons in its custody or subject to its jurisdiction and to release all individuals detained for political reasons,” including Rivera’s relatives and members of his community.
