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Clergy: 3 Dead in Fresh Nicaragua Clashes

by AFP

   LEÓN, NICARAGUA, --

   Three people were killed in fresh clashes Thursday between opposition
   protesters and police and pro-government paramilitaries in northwestern
   Nicaragua, local Catholic clergy said.

   Earlier, around 20 truckloads of riot police and paramilitaries moved
   into the indigenous Sutiaba area of the city of Leon to clear roads
   blocked by barricades.

   "They attacked to remove the barricades that the protesters had built,
   there is still a police presence in Sutiaba, the population is very
   fearful, in their homes. There are policemen with weapons," Roman
   Catholic priest Victor Morales told AFP.

   "There is a lot of tension and we have confirmed we have at least three
   dead."

   The victims were identified as 21-year-old Dany Lopez, Junior Nunez, 22
   and 24-year-old Alex Vazquez, who were shot dead when government forces
   entered Sutiaba, Morales said.

   The priest said Nunez and Vazquez had fled a barricade and "had taken
   refuge in a house" when police entered and shot them.

   Police were using mechanical diggers to tear down the barricades,
   witnesses said.

   Roman Catholic bishops are mediating national dialogue talks between
   the government and opposition in a bid to end protests against
   President Daniel Ortega and government repression that have wracked the
   Central American country since April 18.

   The 72-year-old president has remained silent on a proposal by the
   influential Catholic hierarchy to bring forward elections scheduled for
   2021 to March of next year.

   Foreign Minister Denis Moncada told the talks that the government is
   willing to listen to the opposition, but demanded that the barricades
   be lifted first.

   The clashes in Sutiaba marked a new episode in Nicaragua's 10 weeks of
   protests that have killed at least 220 people.

   "We have until now 22 injured and 14 detained, including journalists
   from the opposition radio Dario, and a 12 year-old boy who was taken
   out of his home," opposition spokesman Bryon Estrada told AFP.

   The protests began as demonstrations against now-scrapped social
   security reforms, but a heavy-handed police reaction transformed them
   into demands for justice for those killed, and for the departure of
   Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.