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The Americas

Fate in limbo, many Nicaraguan exiles struggle in Costa Rica

Associated Press
Published | Updated
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    In this March 29, 2019 photo, Nicaraguan exile, who wishes to only be identified by her nickname "La Profe", Spanish for "the teacher", begs for spare change in Alajuela, Costa Rica. She fled during the so-called Operation Cleanup launched by Daniel Ortega last July, which the United Nations has termed a “witch hunt” aimed at suppressing dissent. She holds a sign with a message that reads in Spanish: "I am Nicaraguan and I need 5 or 10 colones to be able to buy food and pay for a roof to sleep under. Hands that give are never empty. May God bless Costa Rica and Nicaragua." (AP Photo/Carlos Gonzalez)

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    This March 29, 2019 photo shows a bird's eye view of La Carpio, a shantytown on the outskirts of San Jose, Costa Rica. The number of Nicaraguan exiles living in La Carpio has swelled since the Nicaraguan protests that began last April. It’s a neighborhood of cement and sheet-metal homes where sleeping quarters and a latrine often occupy a single space. (AP Photo/Carlos Gonzalez)

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – Back in Nicaragua, she owned her own home and made enough as an elementary substitute teacher and lawyers' assistant to eke out a stable, if not luxurious, life.

Now she spends her days on the streets in and around Costa Rica's capital begging for change and clutching a can decorated with Nicaragua's blue-and-white flag, an unmistakable reminder to pedestrians of the political turbulence that has claimed hundreds of lives in her native country.

"I never did this before," said the 53-year-old woman. "We were modest," she said, "but life (there) is cheaper."

The fate of the estimated 50,000 Nicaraguans who've fled violence and persecution for exile in Costa Rica over the last year is a central point in fledgling peace talks between Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's government and the opposition.