According to UNHCR, around 24 thousand people have left that country in search of asylum,
Freddy Mondragón Benavidez and his group were lost three days between the orange groves of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. On July 15, a day after his barricade was demolished by the National Police and paramilitary forces of Daniel Ortega's government, they decided to flee their native department of Río San Juan. The armed troops began a fierce persecution against the rebels who, without weapons, rose up against the Ortega administration.
After they crossed the San Juan River frontier, they walked for several days bewildered. They drank water from the pipes and ate oranges, because from Nicaragua they fled without anything. "If we did not leave immediately, they would kill us," says Mondragón Benavidez, a peasant with a severe face.
The group of seven men arrived at a "blind spot" known as Four Corners. They crossed on July 18, a day before Ortega celebrated the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution and declared that he was a victim of "a coup d'état" at the hands of these men and young people whom, weeks later, he would point out as "terrorists" .
Mondragón Benavidez is one of about 24 thousand Nicaraguans who have traveled to Costa Rica in search of refuge since last April, when the socio-political crisis broke out, according to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Costa Rica has maintained an open door policy for Nicaraguans fleeing the economic crisis and political persecution. When the peasant Mondragón Benavidez became known in Costa Rican territory, he immediately turned himself in to the immigration authorities. He was transferred to one of the two Temporary Care Centers for Migrants (Catem) installed to help those who arrive fleeing from Nicaragua.
The Nicaraguan refugees must reach San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, to begin the process of asylum. The process usually takes between one and two years. However, while it is complete, they can remain legally on Costa Rican soil.
The immigration authorities of Costa Rica do not know for sure how many Nicaraguans have entered their country in the last four months, because their count is limited to the legally authorized border points. However, the tide of refugees sleeping in the parks of San José and that has fueled xenophobia, account for the magnitude of the exodus.
The Directorate of Immigration and Foreigners of Costa Rica received, on average, between 60 and 120 refugee applications per month. But that number has been dynamited in recent months by the arrival of Nicaraguans. Only in June of this year, Costa Rica received 5,200 requests.
Rodrigo Alberto Carazo, Costa Rica's ambassador to the UN, said the Nicaraguan crisis has had "serious" effects on them in "migratory, social and economic aspects." The statements were made at the informative meeting of the United Nations Security Council, where the Ortega government alleged that the crisis "was not a risk to regional security or the world."
The deepening of the political, social and economic crisis in Nicaragua, the repression and the disrespect of fundamental freedoms and human rights by the authorities have the potential for a crisis of unlimited escalation, with a direct impact on the stability and development of the development of Central America, "said Carazo.
The main part of the exodus occurs in the so-called "blind spots" of the border. "Students, doctors, people of all kinds flee from Nicaragua so that the police do not take them," he told a 'coyote', who charges between 60 and 80 dollars per person to cross into Costa Rican territory.
"We think first of our security, because if they grabbed us in Nicaragua they could disappear us among those orange groves," said Mondragón, referring to Ortega's official and paramilitary armed forces.
Members of the Nicaraguan Army have reinforced these "blind spots" and keep a list in hand to hunt down those considered "terrorists". On the border of Peñas Blancas, the Army has captured several citizen leaders fleeing to Costa Rica, including Cristhian Fajardo and retired Colonel Carlos Brenes, now considered two of the 400 political prisoners maintained by the Ortega government.