Nicaragua’s Interior Ministry said Saturday the country would release dozens of prisoners, as the United States ramped up pressure on leftist President Daniel Ortegaa week after it ousted former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua said Venezuela had taken an important step toward peace by releasing what it described as “political prisoners.” But it lamented that in Nicaragua, “more than 60 people remain unjustly detained or disappeared, including pastors, religious workers, the sick, and the elderly.”
On Saturday, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that “dozens of people who were in the National Penitentiary System are returning to their homes and families.”
It wasn’t immediately clear who was freed and under what conditions. Nicaragua’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The government has been carrying out an ongoing crackdown since mass social protests in 2018, that were violently repressed.
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