“We are experiencing very difficult situations in exile. We do not have an organization to support us,” said Susana Cuningham.
HAVANA TIMES – The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) visited Costa Rica to verify the situation of indigenous and Afro-descendant people from Nicaragua’s Caribbean Regions, who have been forced to flee to their country due to increased repression and violence in their territories.
The IACHR noted that it is aware of the imposition of parallel governments to traditional authorities in Nicaragua’s Caribbean Regions and “the impact of concessions to private companies on their natural resources,” according to a press release published on May 31, 2024.
The organization explained that the events presented since 2018 in a “historical context of marginalization, exclusion, and exacerbated violence,” result in consequences such as “the forced migration of communities.”
The Commission added that it received information about the severe violence faced by indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Regions, “such as murders, kidnappings, threats, sexual violence, and armed attacks perpetrated by settlers seeking to dispossess them of their ancestral territories.”
The delegation, which worked from May 19 to 21, 2024, in Costa Rica, visited Alajuelita and La Carpio, localities on the outskirts of San Jose, where many Nicaraguan exiles have settled. In these places, the IACHR met with indigenous and Afro-descendants “in situations of human mobility” and with Nicaraguan civil society organizations.
In a state of “resistance”
Susana Marley Cuningham, 65,