{"id":187804,"date":"2026-04-21T01:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T07:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/confidencial.digital\/sin-categoria\/dying-outside-nicaragua-the-long-road-to-return-home\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T03:29:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:29:41","slug":"dying-outside-nicaragua-the-long-road-to-return-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/confidencial.digital\/en\/english\/dying-outside-nicaragua-the-long-road-to-return-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Dying Outside Nicaragua: The Long Road to Return Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The body of Nicaraguan national Bryan Rogelio Cruz Calder\u00f3n remained in the morgue of the San Francisco Office of the Medical Examiner in California for more than eleven months. No one could officially claim it because he had no relatives in the United States, nor any documents to facilitate the process. Even in death, he remained stateless. <\/p>\n\n

Thousands of miles away, another Nicaraguan family faced a different, but equally painful, situation. The body of Francisco Antonio Lumbi Chavarr\u00eda had been in a morgue in Jacksonville, Florida, for more than six months. His relatives had gathered part of the money needed to repatriate him, but not enough. Without full payment, no funeral home would agree to retrieve the body. Time passed, and so did the anguish. <\/p>\n\n

Bryan Cruz was a farmer who was tortured, exiled, and stripped of his nationality for opposing the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, while Francisco Lumbi was a citizen pursuing the \u201cAmerican dream.\u201d Their stories ultimately became linked by a shared reality: the solitude of migrants or exiles who die abroad, and the struggle of their families to bring their remains back to Nicaragua. <\/p>\n\n

Repatriating a body is neither a single procedure nor a quick one. It involves a chain of arrangements and expenses that vary depending on the country where the person dies. In Costa Rica, due to its proximity to Nicaragua, the cost is around $2,000; from the United States, it can reach up to $10,000; while from Spain, it would range between $6,000 and $6,500. These costs are cut in half if families choose to cremate the body and repatriate the ashes. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n

A Tortured and Exiled Farmer<\/h2>\n\n

Bryan Cruz grew up in the rural areas of Estel\u00ed, in northern Nicaragua. He could neither read nor write. He was an opponent of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, and he took part in the marches organized by the Movimiento Campesino de Nicaragua between 2013 and 2017 against Law 840, also known as the Interoceanic Canal Law. <\/p>\n\n

He also became involved in the mass protests of April 2018, which were violently suppressed by the Ortega regime, leaving more than 350 Nicaraguans dead and thousands injured, according to national and international human rights organizations.<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Following the demonstrations, police and paramilitary forces in the municipality of Pueblo Nuevo, in the northern department of Jinotega, captured Bryan Cruz in the rural community of El Dorado<\/a>, where one of his sisters lived. He was accused, without evidence, of stealing a cell phone. <\/p>\n\n

In prison he suffered torture, including rape with a bayonet that perforated his colon and left him near death. He was even transferred to the morgue of Victoria Motta Hospital in Jinotega, where the medical examiner discovered he was still alive. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n

Bryan Cruz was the first political prisoner to denounce torture in Ortega-Murillo prisons <\/a>in 2018. Besides the rape, the skin of his testicles was flayed, and he suffered constant abuse, beatings, lack of medical care, and total isolation as punishment. His wife was groped when she came to visit him. <\/p>\n\n

The Nicaraguan never stayed silent about the torture and abuse he endured. \u201cMany people don\u2019t say they were raped, but he spoke openly about it and allowed photos to be taken (of the aftereffects of the torture). He said this government had to pay for everything it has done,\u201d recalls Juana Maria Porta, a Nicaraguan resident in California who helped and accompanied Bryan Cruz in exile. <\/p>\n\n

The Death of Bryan Cruz<\/h2>\n\n

The farmer was released from prison and expelled from the country along with 221 political prisoners in February 2023<\/a>. He arrived in Washington with severe physical aftereffects, including a stomach hernia caused by the torture, for which he underwent surgery in the United States. Those who knew him recall that the trauma never left him. <\/p>\n\n

In the United States, he began a \u201cdifficult\u201d but hopeful process of adaptation: he was learning to live alone in a new city, washing dishes, and sending money back to his family in Nicaragua. Juana Mar\u00eda Porta says Bryan alternated between moments of enthusiasm and episodes of sadness. At times, he felt lonely, especially at night. The trauma was like his shadow, always clinging to him. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cHe would call me at odd hours, around midnight or in the early morning, to play me songs or videos by Karol G, because he knew I liked her. I would answer out of fear it might be an emergency, and I\u2019d say, \u2018Do you think people don\u2019t sleep?\u2019 And he would just reply, \u2018Oh, oh, I\u2019m sorry.\u2019 I think he just wanted someone to talk to,\u201d the Nicaraguan woman recalls.<\/p>\n\n

\"Bryan
Bryan Rogelio Cruz Calder\u00f3n poses with a Nicaraguan flag and a shirt bearing the national symbol in an apartment in the United States. | Photo: Courtesy <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Bryan Cruz died at the age of 37 on Friday, April 18, 2025, in a small apartment that the U.S. government under Joe Biden had assigned to him in 2024 in downtown San Francisco, California. There were no visible signs of violence, and the cause of death was recorded as \u201cundetermined,\u201d according to Porta. <\/p>\n\n

Hours before his death, Bryan Cruz had been at Juana Mar\u00eda\u2019s home in Hercules\u2014a city about 30 kilometers from San Francisco\u2014so she could help him with his asylum application. \u201cHe spent the afternoon at my house, joking around with some guys who are here. He took photos with them next to the Nicaraguan flag. It was something he always did,\u201d the Nicaraguan woman recalls. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cWhen it got late,\u201d she continues, \u201cI gave him $100 for transportation and as a bit of help. Once he got home, he called to let me know he had arrived safely and that the next day he would come back to pick up some papers. That was the last time we spoke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

At first, U.S. authorities did not issue a death certificate because Bryan Cruz was stateless and had no immediate family members who could legally represent him. As a result, the Nicaraguan\u2019s body was \u201cclose\u201d to being cremated and buried in a mass grave; that outcome was prevented thanks to the intervention of Porta and Anita Wells, another Nicaraguan in the United States who had helped Bryan Cruz. <\/p>\n\n

Juana Mar\u00eda Porta was designated as the legal representative of the farmer\u2019s family.<\/p>\n\n

\n