Tamara Davila reunited with her daughter after 20 months

Tamara Davila was finally able to be reunited with her little daughter on Thursday, after a year and 8 months of being separated. The political activist was kidnapped by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship on June 12 of 2021.  She was released and banished from Nicaragua on February 9, 2023 along with 221 other political prisoners.

Images of the emotional meeting circulated on social networks, in which Davila is seen crying for the joy of being able to hug her daughter after all that time without contact, do to her cruel prison conditions.

Davila shared a message of thanks through social networks, mainly to the United States Government, for its efforts to promote the meeting.

“Today, Thursday, April 6, at 8:00 p.m., I was finally able to reunite with my daughter, after a year and eight months of being separated. I am deeply grateful to the Government and people of the United States for facilitating this reunification. I hope the same arrives soon for all the families of people released from political prisons. I appreciate the company, solidarity and affection of all the people who have fought for our freedom and family reunification,” stated Davila.

Davila was part of the group of 222 political prisoners released and exiled by the dictatorship on a flight to the United States on February 9, 2023. On March 29th, she was present at the session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS), to share her testimony about the 606 days that she was imprisoned in the infamous El Chipote prison.

“For more than 80 days I did not hear from her (her daughter), nor from the rest of my family. They didn’t know anything about me either… that was the worst torture I suffered. I didn’t know if they had kidnapped my daughter or had sent her to an orphanage?” Davila spoke in a broken voice during her intervention, which was achieved thanks to Chile giving up its space in the OAS plenary.

“I have been free for 48 days, but I still haven’t been reunited with my daughter, who prays every night with her grandmother asking that they give her the piece of paper so that she can travel and meet me and never be separated from me again. The dictatorship holds our families hostage in Nicaragua. He intimidates sons and daughters, keeps them under surveillance, preventing many of them from leaving Nicaragua for our reunifications,” she explained during her intervention to the OAS, nine days before her daughter’s arrival.

Davila’s little daughter was an eyewitness to the violent arrest of her mother, who was beaten by police officers who stormed into their house.

“Despite the fact that I was in some sense prepared to be arrested, since I was subjected to surveillance and siege for months, my detention was very violent for my daughter and for me. Despite the fact that I opened the door and expressed that I would turn myself in, the police officers kicked the gate down, stormed the house and disconnected the security cameras. Female officers beat me until I bled and dragged me into a patrol car,” Davila recounted during her speech before the OAS representatives.

This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times