Attacks on Ruling Party Backers Kill 5, Wound 24
AP, Jul 20 2014
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Unidentified gunmen staged separate attacks on two buses carrying supporters of Nicaragua’s governing Sandinista party home after a celebration of the 1979 revolution, killing five people and wounding 24, local authorities in northern Nicaragua said Sunday. The national police and army provided no information on either attack, and there was no indication of who staged the assaults. Matagalpa Mayor Zadrach Zeledon, a member of the Sandinista party, told Channel 4 that the worst attack happened on the Pan American Highway around 1 am on Sunday in a community known as Las Calabazas. Two men and two women died from bullet wounds, he said. The other attack was reported north of Matagalpa on a road between the towns of San Ramon and El Jobo. One man was reported killed there. The government supporters were heading home after Saturday’s commemoration of the ouster of the Somoza dictatorship on Jul 19 1979. Leaders of the political opposition as well as Roman Catholic bishops in Nicaragua’s north have said there are groups of people who have taken up arms against the government of Pres Ortega. Both the police and military have denied those claims, saying crime gangs are behind violence in the region.
