AA
Share
The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo expelled Spain’s ambassador to Nicaragua, Sergio Farré Salvá, and his deputy chief of mission, Minister-Counselor Miguel Mahiques Núñez, one day after both met in Managua with a group of eight aid workers representing various development projects, who were also expelled from the country, according to sources linked to Spanish organizations working in Nicaragua.
Farré Salvá and Mahiques Núñez met on Friday, January 23, 2026, with aid workers from Spanish NGOs to learn about the work they carry out in Nicaragua. On Saturday night, the two diplomats received a notification informing them that they had to “leave the country immediately.” Both have already returned to Madrid.
According to the sources, the dictatorship initially gave no explanation to the Spanish government for the expulsion, although it later claimed that the ambassador had “overstepped” his authority and carried out “activities incompatible” with his diplomatic status. However, no specific allegation against the diplomat has been made public, while Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the expulsion as “unjustified.”
According to the Spanish newspaper The Objective, those expelled by the Nicaraguan regime were seven people—two diplomats and five aid workers who took part in the meeting in Managua. However, sources linked to Spanish NGOs working in Nicaragua revealed that the number of expelled aid workers is higher.
Neither Ortega nor Murillo nor Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry has commented on the expulsion of the Spanish diplomat, nor on the expulsion of Nicaragua’s ambassador in Madrid, Maurizio Alberto Gelli, and another Managua-based diplomat, ordered by the Spanish government in “strict reciprocity” for the “unjust expulsion” of Farré Salvá and Mahiques Núñez.
Pro-government and Sandinista media outlets have also remained silent on the news, which comes amid ongoing tensions between the administrations of Ortega and Murillo and that of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Sergio Ramírez points to regime’s “permanent irritation”
In an interview with The Objective, Nicaraguan writer and former vice president Sergio Ramírez attributed the expulsion of the Spanish diplomats to “a state of permanent irritation” on the part of the Nicaraguan dictatorship toward the Spanish government and Spain in general, “because of the support that has been given to Nicaraguan exiles and to those of us who lost our nationality by the arbitrary decision of the dictators in Nicaragua.”
Ramírez recalled that this “tension” in diplomatic relations between Nicaragua and Spain goes back years and pointed to what happened with the previous ambassador, María de Mar Fernández, who was denied reentry into the country.
“Today this crisis of permanent irritation has erupted once again. I believe there is a kind of arrogance on the part of a dictatorship like Nicaragua’s, wanting to arbitrarily impose itself on countries such as Spain that have been supportive of Nicaragua and that also belong to a community of nations, the European Union, which has consistently spoken out against the dictatorship in Nicaragua,” Ramírez emphasized.
Sergio Farré Salvá in his first posting as ambassador
According to the Spanish newspaper ABC, the expulsion of Farré Salvá and Mahiques Núñez has surprised their Spanish diplomatic colleagues, who agree in describing the ambassador as “a good guy” and “a great professional.”
Farré Salvá has been a career diplomat since 2005 and has served at Spain’s embassies in Khartoum, Sudan; Ljubljana, Slovenia; at Spain’s Permanent Representation to the European Union in Brussels; La Paz, Bolivia; and in Brussels, Belgium.
Nicaragua was his first posting as ambassador, and it would become the shortest assignment of his long diplomatic career, lasting only three weeks. On January 2, 2026, he presented his credentials to Nicaragua’s “co–foreign minister,” Valdrack Ludwig Jaentschke.
On January 7, Ortega and Murillo published a Presidential Decree recognizing Farré Salvá as “the extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador of the Kingdom of Spain to the people and government of the Republic of Nicaragua,” according to the Official Gazette La Gaceta.
The spouses and “co-presidents” of Nicaragua ordered “the civil and military authorities to observe and ensure the prerogatives and immunities corresponding to his rank.”
According to ABC, the meeting attended by Sergio Farré Salvá and Mahiques Núñez “was intended solely to ‘build bridges,’ since an ambassador, as Spain’s representative in a country, must be able to meet with whomever he wants, whenever he wants.”
“It is difficult to imagine that in such a short period of time he could have done something so serious as to warrant expulsion from the country he arrived in on December 2,” the Spanish newspaper concludes.
Tensions between Nicaragua and Spain
This is the second time in the past four years that Nicaragua and Spain have been left without diplomatic representation in Managua and Madrid.
In 2021, the government of Pedro Sánchez recalled Spain’s then-ambassador, María del Mar Fernández-Palacios, for consultations in response to a statement from Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry that, according to Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contained “gross falsehoods about Spanish judicial and electoral processes.” Subsequently, regime authorities denied her return to Nicaragua.
Spain’s Foreign Ministry later summoned Nicaragua’s then-ambassador in Madrid, Carlos Midence, to demand explanations for the refusal to allow the Spanish ambassador’s return to Managua. A few hours later, the Nicaraguan government ordered Midence’s removal from his duties, arguing that he was facing “continuous interference-driven pressure and threats” that made it “impossible to carry out diplomatic work.”
In 2022, Nicaragua appointed Maurizio Alberto Gelli as ambassador in Madrid. Meanwhile, Spain attempted to secure Fernández-Palacios’s return to Managua, but Ortega’s government denied authorization, underscoring the fragility of relations between the two countries.
Eventually, Pilar María Terrén was accredited as Spain’s ambassador and remained in the post until she was replaced by Sergio Farré, in an attempt to close the diplomatic dispute—one that has now reopened.
