(Reuters) -United Nations experts on Friday urged Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's government to "clarify the fate and whereabouts" of more than 120 people who they said appeared to have been forcibly disappeared since authorities violently suppressed anti-government protests in 2018.
The Geneva-based UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances said a wide range of people had gone missing, including those without known political affiliations "perceived as dissenting with official positions."
"Everyone who is trying to defend their rights is at risk of being forcibly disappeared in Nicaragua. This must end immediately," the experts said.
The disappearances "appear to be ordered at the highest levels of authority and are designed to instill fear across society," the group stated.
The Nicaraguan government did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
While their records account for over 120 missing people, the UN experts said the actual number could be higher, "as many families and legal representatives are afraid to report due to fear of reprisals."
They said they had received no official response from Managua to requests sent since 2018, lamenting that the government was not cooperating despite offers of technical assistance.
They called on authorities to end arbitrary detentions and investigate human rights violations.
Another UN group said last month that the government led by Ortega and his wife and "co-president" Rosario Murillo was expanding its repression by targeting Nicaraguans abroad.
Nicaragua has been in a political crisis since April 2018, when social protests were met with a violent crackdown by police and paramilitaries that, according to human rights groups, left some 355 people dead, more than 2,000 injured, and hundreds of thousands in exile.
(Reporting by Gabriela Selser; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
