A vast surveillance and intelligence network has allowed the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to identify, locate, and spy on Nicaraguans in exile \u2014 even when they are hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from the country. In addition, the dictatorship has deployed \u201ca systematic strategy of repression against all forms of opposition, which now extends beyond Nicaragua\u2019s borders,\u201d warns the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN). <\/p>\n\n CONFIDENCIAL<\/strong> spoke with a group of the hundreds of victims of what the GHREN describes as a \u201clong-arm\u201d strategy of violations that erodes the spaces of refuge for Nicaraguans abroad.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n Most choose to speak anonymously because the fear of reprisals or that \u201csomething might happen\u201d to their families is a reality they live with every day. <\/p>\n\n The Ortega-Murillo regime\u2019s transnational repression strategy operates with the goal of controlling, intimidating, and neutralizing any form of dissent, wherever it may be found, according to the report<\/a> Nicaragua: Persecution Beyond Borders, Exile, and Transnational Human Rights Violations.<\/em><\/p>\n\n The eight forms of transnational human rights violations<\/a> against Nicaraguan exiles identified by the GHREN are: <\/p>\n\n On February 10, 2023, a video went viral showing a man in a white guayabera shirt, holding a rosary in his hands and wearing a prosthetic leg. He was demanding freedom for then-imprisoned Bishop Rolando \u00c1lvarez, one day after the Ortega-Murillo regime expelled 222 political prisoners to the United States. The man was Pedro Guti\u00e9rrez, who had already been arrested once before, on July 4, 2018, and spent 18 months behind bars. One day after that act of protest, he was imprisoned again. \u201cThey sent me to a punishment cell, where I spent three months handcuffed 24 hours a day, with a surveillance camera and a light shining directly on my face,\u201d Pedro recalls. Pedro, an industrial mechanic, was later released from prison but expelled by the dictatorship to Guatemala along with 134 other Nicaraguans<\/a> on September 5, 2024. However, because he lacks identity documents, he has been unable to find work. <\/p>\n\n \u201cWhen I set foot on Guatemalan soil, I felt completely disoriented,\u201d he says. Although the days since have been difficult, he has managed to survive thanks to support from organizations, family, and friends. <\/p>\n\n Pedro tried to travel to the United States but was denied entry. He was told his statements \u201clacked credibility,\u201d in addition to facing the regime\u2019s false accusations of drug trafficking and money laundering. The same happened to 38 other exiles.<\/a> Nonetheless, he was able to bring his son with him to Guatemala; his son later made it to the U.S. and now helps him financially. <\/p>\n\n Pedro is currently one of twelve released political prisoners approved by the Canadian government for resettlement through a program coordinated by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). \u201cI\u2019m excited to start over,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I want to move forward and work, because I\u2019ve always done so without depending on others.\u201d Pedro insists he will continue to raise his voice wherever he goes \u2014 even though doing so has already cost him exile and left him \u201cwithout a homeland.\u201d <\/p>\n\n \u201cI never imagined I wouldn\u2019t be able to return to Nicaragua when I left on that trip,\u201d says Eugenia<\/em>, a woman from the south of the country. When she left, she told authorities her trip was for a business event, though in reality it was for a religious one. \u201cI didn\u2019t even post a photo from the trip to protect myself, but I guess they knew I\u2019m active in my town\u2019s Catholic Church,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n\n She prefers not to mention what month, but it happened in 2024. \u201cA day before my flight, the airline notified me that the Nicaraguan government was not allowing me to enter my own country. It was a hard blow, like lightning struck my entire body,\u201d she recalls. <\/p>\n\n Since then, in the solitude of exile, Eugenia<\/em> has spent countless hours trying to \u201cfigure out\u201d why this happened to her. But she never finds a clear answer. \u201cI think I\u2019ll never know,\u201d she resigns. She\u2019s thought it might be because she\u2019s active in her church, because her children joined the protests, or because, even though she doesn\u2019t get involved in politics, she\u2019s been \u201clabeled as an opponent.\u201d <\/p>\n\n \u201cEvery time I think about it, I feel it could have been for any of those reasons, or maybe a mix of all of them. The only thing I know is that I can\u2019t go back,\u201d she laments. <\/p>\n\n Even though she couldn\u2019t return, Eugenia says the harassment of her family continues. \u201cThey won\u2019t let us live in peace,\u201d she insists. <\/p>\n\n Eugenia speaks with pain about how the regime\u2019s propaganda \u201csells the idea that Nicaragua is a country with open arms,\u201d when in reality \u201cit expels us because we don\u2019t think like them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n At least 318 Nicaraguans have been left in migration limbo between June 2018 and August 2025 after being de facto banished, having been denied reentry into Nicaragua, according to the GHREN report. <\/p>\n\n When Paola went to apply for a passport for her youngest daughter at the Immigration office inside a Managua shopping mall, she was told she had to go in person to the main office. \u201cFrom that moment, I knew something was wrong,\u201d she recalls. <\/p>\n\n She waited almost a month after the original appointment date, and when she finally overcame her fear, she went with her husband and three children. \u201cThey made us wait for hours and never gave us an answer,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n\n Paola suspected they would deny the passport because she had been detained for several days during a police sweep against people labeled as opposition supporters, and because a police officer had been visiting her weekly. <\/p>\n\n \u201cThe woman attending us kept calling her superiors and telling them the passport was ready, but it seemed they told her she couldn\u2019t give it to me,\u201d Paola recalls. <\/p>\n\n The officer kept asking why she needed a passport for her daughter, and Paola replied it was for a future trip to Costa Rica. \u201cShe\u2019s here alone with her daughter,\u201d the immigration officer told her superior over the phone. Paola\u2019s husband and two older children were waiting outside. The officer even went out to look for them but couldn\u2019t find them. Finally, she told Paola she would have to come back. \u201cBut come alone, without your daughter,\u201d she insisted. That\u2019s when Paola realized she could never return to the Immigration office, because \u201cthey could detain me or make me disappear.\u201d <\/p>\n\n Almost immediately, she prepared to leave for Costa Rica with her husband and three children, where they now live in exile. \u201cThey never wanted to give me my daughter\u2019s passport, they denied her right to a travel document,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n The Ortega-Murillo regime has severely obstructed \u2014 or outright denied \u2014 access for people in exile and their relatives to official documents, including passports, birth certificates, marriage records, and academic transcripts, with the intent of \u201cfurther uprooting them and cutting their ties to their country of origin,\u201d the GHREN notes. <\/p>\n\n Brenda Mar\u00eda<\/em> was imprisoned, and later the dictatorship exchanged her prison sentence for exile, statelessness, and the confiscation of her retirement pension. From that moment, she felt her life changed completely \u2014 though, as she says, it was \u201cnumbed by the feeling of freedom after 15 months in prison.\u201d <\/p>\n\n At first, she wasn\u2019t fully aware of her exile because she was \u201cenjoying freedom and being with my family, and it wasn\u2019t until they decreed the confiscation of all my property that I realized I had lost everything: my country, my pension, my home, my rights.\u201d For Brenda Mar\u00eda<\/em>, being stateless reduces a person to being \u201cthrown into the world with nothing to hold on to.\u201d <\/p>\n\n Losing her pension income has been a trauma that\u2019s not easy to overcome \u2014 especially as a retired woman. \u201cIn my case, I think the greatest impact has been emotional, because even though I have the unconditional support of my family, losing such an important source of income leaves me dependent on others,\u201d she explains. Although her family supports her financially, she says it still affects her deeply because \u201call my life I was the provider for my household and for my own needs, and that gives you a sense of security, stability, and self-confidence.\u201d <\/p>\n\n Brenda Mar\u00eda <\/em>worked for many years in international cooperation organizations and says she used to have a \u201cgood pension\u201d that allowed her to \u201clive decently.\u201d <\/p>\n\n She is also saddened by having been torn away from her home, her family, her friends, and her homeland. Her health deteriorated during her imprisonment, but she says she is now \u201cstable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n \u201cI survive thanks to the love and care of my husband and family. I\u2019m not working; I dedicate myself to caring for my loved ones and to keeping my voice raised for the freedom of political prisoners,\u201d says Brenda Mar\u00eda.<\/em><\/p>\n\n Adonis<\/em> left university in April 2018 after joining the protests in Nicaragua. Five months later, he was forced into exile. \u201cI was threatened with imprisonment \u2014 those threats still persist,\u201d he explains. <\/p>\n\n When he arrived in Costa Rica, he began organizing with other refugees, holding sit-ins and marches to draw attention to the human rights violations taking place in Nicaragua. \u201cSince then, the dictatorship has sent people to watch us because it wants to control us, they don\u2019t want to let us live in peace, even though we were already forced to leave our country,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n He recalls that during the first demonstrations outside the Nicaraguan Embassy in San Jos\u00e9, Costa Rica, there were suspicious people taking photographs. <\/p>\n\n \u201cAfter the protests ended, people were followed by unknown individuals, and many of us started warning each other about what was happening,\u201d he says. Because of that, Adonis<\/em> stopped attending the protests outside the Nicaraguan Embassy, and later, even other demonstrations in Costa Rica. \u201cI even avoid going to cultural events or Nicaraguan food fairs,\u201d he adds. He believes many other exiles feel the same way. \u201cFewer and fewer people were showing up out of fear, and now the terror they\u2019ve managed to instill is much greater,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n Adonis<\/em> says acts of surveillance, threats, and harassment have crossed borders. \u201cI\u2019ve received messages from unknown numbers or fake social media accounts threatening me,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n According to Yader Valdivia, a lawyer with the Nicaragua Nunca M\u00e1s Human Rights Collective, reports of surveillance and threats against exiles have increased since 2024. \u201cAt least a dozen people have reported being followed in public places such as markets or during protest sit-ins. There are also at least six reports of unknown individuals asking about exiles near their homes,\u201d Valdivia warns. <\/p>\n\n He adds that some exiles have received messages from unknown numbers, including photos of themselves near their homes or as they were getting into an Uber. \u201cThe goal is to intimidate them, to remind them they\u2019re being watched, and this has generated a great deal of fear among these citizens,\u201d the lawyer emphasizes. <\/p>\n\n Rosa Ruiz, mother of the Costa Rican\u2013Nicaraguan doctor Yerri Estrada, imprisoned by the Sandinista dictatorship since August 13, 2025, says she is living a nightmare. It wasn\u2019t enough for them to imprison her son; after she dared to denounce his detention, the regime began \u201cpunishing\u201d the rest of her family still in Nicaragua. <\/p>\n\n Rosa reports that her two other children, Maura Estrada and a 14-year-old boy, along with a five-year-old granddaughter, are now living in \u201cforced displacement\u201d after being \u201cforced to leave their home\u201d due to constant threats and harassment by police and civilians. \u201cThey even threatened my younger son with an arrest warrant, and that\u2019s a horrendous crime,\u201d she says. Even though they are now \u201cin hiding\u201d elsewhere, the harassment at their home in Le\u00f3n continues. \u201cThey have to stay locked inside where they are, and it\u2019s terrible to do that to two children who struggle to understand why they can\u2019t go outside,\u201d she laments. She also says both minors had to \u201cdrop out of school.\u201d Her son was in his third year of secondary school, and her granddaughter was in her final year of preschool. <\/p>\n\n Now living in exile herself, this mother says she won\u2019t remain silent until her son is free. \u201cI\u2019m going to keep raising my voice\u2014they won\u2019t silence me,\u201d she insists. <\/p>\n\n Although her public denunciations helped pressure authorities to allow Yerri\u2019s fianc\u00e9e to visit him on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, and to later release photos and videos of him<\/a> nine days after that visit, Rosa says she now considers him \u201cdisappeared\u201d again. <\/p>\n\n \u201cBy persecuting my daughter, who was supposed to visit him and bring food or medicine, they are violating all of his rights,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n\n On Saturday, October 4, 2025, academic Adri\u00e1n Meza, exiled in Costa Rica, reported an intelligence operation against him,<\/a> for which he blamed the Nicaraguan Army. A man had shown up at his home pretending to deliver his vehicle.<\/p>\n\n \u201cThe security guards didn\u2019t let the intruder in. When he realized I was being notified about the unusual visit, he disappeared without a trace,\u201d said Meza, who was the rector of Nicaragua\u2019s Paulo Freire University, shut down by the National Assembly<\/a> at the request of the Sandinista executive branch.<\/p>\n\n Physical violence against Nicaraguans in exile has become \u201ca growing concern in recent years,\u201d particularly in Costa Rica and Honduras\u2014countries where murders and attempted murders of Nicaraguan exiles have been recorded, the most recent being the killing of retired Army major Roberto Samcam.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n The GHREN has also documented other exiled Nicaraguans who were victims of attacks, including Joao Maldonado<\/a>, who survived two assassination attempts in Costa Rica in 2021 and 2024, and Rodolfo Rojas Cordero<\/a>, who was found dead in Honduras in 2022. The report emphasizes that both the survivors and those killed had been harassed and had received death threats and warnings before the attacks. <\/p>\n\n It adds that these murders and other violent incidents \u201chighlight the urgent need to strengthen international cooperation, reinforce protection mechanisms for exiled populations, and carry out thorough investigations into the transnational dimension of the threats they face.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Although these crimes remain under investigation, the Group of Experts notes that \u201cthe possibility cannot be ruled out that these murders and attempted murders are part of a broader pattern of transnational human rights violations targeting Nicaraguans in exile until exhaustive and independent investigations are conducted.\u201d <\/p>\n\n The GHREN calls for these investigations not only to pursue the direct perpetrators but also \u201cto examine all possible motives, including political ones, and seek to establish the responsibility of those who may have ordered or planned the crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Indigenous professor and former political prisoner Gabriel Putoy, now a refugee in Costa Rica, lost a formal job in exile after the country\u2019s financial system shut him out and his employer decided to revoke his contract. This happened in February 2024. The reason: a Nicaraguan judge aligned with the dictatorship issued an arrest warrant against him, accusing him of obstruction of public duties to the detriment of the State of Nicaragua. <\/p>\n\n Putoy visited three different bank branches to open an account where his monthly salary could be deposited for his administrative work at a cleaning company. Each time, he was told that entering his name into the system triggered an alert. He received the same response when he asked another bank why his account had been closed. <\/p>\n\n According to the GHREN report, in a further attempt to restrict exiles\u2019 freedom of movement, Nicaraguan authorities have used various mechanisms such as reporting their passports as stolen or revoked, and also making \u201cimproper use\u201d of Interpol\u2019s \u201cred notices\u201d<\/a>\u2014international requests to locate and provisionally arrest individuals for extradition purposes. <\/p>\n\n\n
Three months in a punishment cell, and now \u201cwithout a homeland\u201d
\u201cThe Only Thing I Know Is That I Can\u2019t Go Back\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
\u201cThey Never Gave Me My Daughter\u2019s Passport\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
Losing Her Pension Has Left Her \u201cCompletely Dependent\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve Taken Photos of Us at Protests in Costa Rica\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
Her Children and Granddaughter Were \u201cForced to Leave Their Home\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
From Surveillance to Physical Violence<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
Misuse of International Control Mechanisms<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n