On 31 May 2026, an official announcement was made regarding the death of Brooklyn Rivera Bryan – a Miskito leader, legislator, and high-ranking member of the indigenous YATAMA party – while he was unjustly imprisoned for political reasons. Three days prior to announcing the death, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Health had published images of the Miskitu leader for the first time since holding him for nearly three years in a situation of forced disappearance. The photos showed him in a state of visible and severe physical decline. His family denounced that Brooklyn Rivera was in excellent health at the time of his arrest in September 2023, and that the deterioration of his health was the result of his forced disappearance and lack of medical care. This is the seventh political prisoner who has died while in the custody of the Nicaraguan State since the April 2018 social uprising.

Shortly after the announcement, sources close to the Miskitu Peoples denounced the detention of six family members and community leaders who had traveled from their communities to identify and demand the release of the body for burial in accordance to the Miskitu Peoples’ cosmovision and traditions. To date, their whereabouts are unknown. Regime-affiliated media reported that the Miskito leader was buried at night without the family’s consent.

We have learned that security checks have intensified in the communities of the Northern and Southern Caribbean Coast; that special units of the national police have been deployed; and that surveillance and harassment campaigns have been launched against local leaders and defenders of the community.

IM-Defensoras alerts the international community to the gravity of this situation, which continues to violate human rights and, in particular, the integrity and safety of women defenders, especially those from Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples, who, in addition to experiencing collective grief over the death of a long-standing leader, face the risk of criminalization and forced disappearance – a pattern of repression that has marked the totalitarian government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo over the past eight years.

We denounce the forced disappearance of his six relatives, including two women, and demand that they be returned alive immediately; we also denounce the withholding of information regarding the deceased leader’s health from his family, as well as the lack of respect for the Miskitu Peoples’ cosmovision and their right to hold dignified funeral rites in accordance with their culture and ancestral traditions.

We demand an end to the persecution of the Miskitu Peoples and the deprivation of their rights, autonomy, and territories, as well as an end to the attacks, harassment, and political violence against their leaders and those who defend human rights in the region.

These events confirm the existence of a systematic policy of violations of the rights of political prisoners and people who have been forcibly disappeared – and their families, and makes evident the violence, racism, and discrimination that the dictatorship has inflicted upon Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples and territories. We reiterate our condemnation and our concern regarding this situation and call on the international community to add its voice to this condemnation, speak out, and remain vigilant.