Activists Throw Rocks, Use Homemade Firearms Against Police, Government Sympathizers in Mayasa

Activists opposing Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega crouched behind brick barriers, threw rocks and fired homemade firearms against authorities and government sympathizers in a street battle to hold the neighborhood of Monimbo, Mayasa, on July 17.

News reports named Monimbo as a “symbolically important” center for anti-government resistance that had been held by resisters since the mass protests of April, 2018.

“This is the reality of living in Masaya,” says Gutierrez in the video. “The people, all the people entrenched in their houses in fear of the national police.”

He goes on to say that many people took the example of the students who fought in the protests on April 18 and have taken up arms against government authorities. However, news reports quote some local citizens as being pro-government forces.

Towards the end of the video, one man holds out a handful of spent shotgun shells and bullet casings, saying “these are not caramels, this is what they’re shooting.”

Three people were reportedly killed in the fight, and the resisters were ultimately outnumbered and outgunned.

Government forces took the neighborhood by the early afternoon, according to reports. Credit: Gabriel Gutierrez via Storyful