The United States denounced on Wednesday the disappearance in Nicaragua of a doctor with dual Nicaraguan and Costa Rican nationality, holding co-presidents and spouses Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo responsible.
The “forced disappearance” of 30-year-old Dr. Yerri Estrada had been reported last week before Costa Rica’s Congress by leftist lawmaker Priscilla Vindas.
“Three weeks ago, the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship arrested, brutally tortured, and ultimately made Dr. Yerri Estrada disappear, a dedicated physician, after a morning spent providing medical services to a local community,” the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said.
“His ‘crime’? Defending freedom during peaceful civic demonstrations. Is Murillo so insecure that she cannot provide evidence he is still alive?” it added. The case follows the deaths of two opposition prisoners in Nicaragua, which exiles and human rights defenders have attributed to a new “repressive era” stemming from the anticipated transfer of power from ailing Ortega to his wife.
In Nicaragua, repression reaches “not only the Nicaraguan people, but also citizens with Costa Rican nationality,” Vindas said. Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry stated that its consulate in Managua is in contact with the doctor’s mother and with Nicaraguan authorities but did not release details, citing confidentiality.
Ortega and Murillo have been accused of maintaining a fierce persecution of the opposition since the 2018 protests, which Managua labeled as a U.S.-backed coup attempt. The crackdown left more than 300 dead, according to the UN.
Ortega, a 79-year-old former guerrilla, has been in power since 2007 and previously ruled Nicaragua during the 1980s. Critics and human rights organizations accuse him of establishing a “family dictatorship” alongside Murillo, 74.
In recent months, Ortega has been seen in public struggling to walk and appearing pale (he suffers from lupus and kidney failure).
Estrada was born in Costa Rica in 1995 but was taken as a child to live in Nicaragua by his family, according to the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, which now operates in exile.
