From his forced exile, Félix Maradiaga watches on as his beloved homeland morphs into something unrecognisable: a surveillance state where speaking out against Daniel Ortega's government could mean jail, exile, or, in Maradiaga's case, both.

After being stripped of his citizenship and forced to flee, the regime has tried multiple tactics to keep him quiet. But no matter the pressure, Maradiaga refuses. Yielding to the government would be unprecedented for a man who has endured months in Ortega's notorious El Chipote prison, where he witnessed torture and systematic abuse firsthand. So, last year, the regime crossed a new line – it went after his family. In September, authorities seized his mother's childhood home, a property she had legally owned for over 40 years.

"It was a place of profound emotional significance to our family," Maradiaga told bne IntelliNews. The message got through: not even family members are safe from President Daniel Ortega's expanding web of transnational repression.

But in spite of the pressure, Maradiaga, once Nicaragua's most prominent opposition leader and a former political prisoner, will not stay silent.

"Other relatives have also been forced to leave the country simply because of their connection to me," Maradiaga said,” he said. “But I consider it a personal duty – born of my own suffering – to speak out for those still voiceless inside the country.” 

Nicaragua breaks with UNHCR

The latest escalation of Ortega's systematic dismantling of his country's human rights came on June 12, when Nicaragua cut ties with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. For the international community, it marks a further step away from global accountability, but for Maradiaga and thousands of other Nicaraguan exiles, it is something far more sinister: the regime's declaration that its own people have no right to exist safely beyond its borders.

By breaking with UNHCR, Ortega's government is abandoning Nicaraguans who have fled abroad, stripping them of any institutional or diplomatic protection, and sending a statement that those who flee are considered enemies who deserve no safety, not even in exile. 

One-family rule 

Nicaragua's transformation from struggling democracy to what critics call a family dynasty – dubbed by some, with dark irony, a "marital dictatorship" – has accelerated dramatically since 2018. That year, the regime's brutal repression of a popular uprising killed more than 300 people. Constitutional changes have since elevated Ortega's wife, Rosario Murillo, to co-president. Both leaders now have sweeping authority to deploy armed forces whenever they perceive threats to sovereignty. This dual leadership places Nicaragua's entire security under the control of a single family unit—a development that echoes the Somoza dynasty's 47-year grip on power, which ended in 1979 with the Sandinista revolution spearheaded by Ortega.

Yet over time, the liberators became the very dictators they had once fought to overthrow. UN experts now describe the state and ruling leftist Sandinista party as having "virtually fused into a unified machine of repression." They also found that they operate "a wide intelligence machine, surveilling the population and selecting the targets for the violation of rights." This network reaches far beyond Nicaragua’s borders, going after exiles and their families – like Maradiaga – with such reach and precision that the usual idea of a country minding only its own affairs no longer applies.

Friends from the East

As internal repression intensifies, so does Nicaragua's isolation within the international community. Major global powers step away, and authoritarian ones enter.

In February 2025, Nicaragua received five Russian military helicopters, three aircraft, and 18 air defence systems as donations from the Kremlin. Two months later, in May 2025, the two nations signed a military cooperation agreement that solidified five years of deepening security ties including intelligence sharing, joint operations, and weapons transfers.

Russian personnel exclusively control surveillance equipment inside Nicaragua, at the Mokoron military base, located just outside the capital. Likewise, as of last year, Russia runs two police training centres in Managua, designed to train police officers from other countries across Latin America and the Caribbean. The centres raise further concerns about Moscow planting seeds of influence throughout the hemisphere via the police forces it trains.

Meanwhile, China continues to provide military equipment through Poly Technologies, a subsidiary sanctioned by the US for allegedly supplying sensitive military technology to Russian defence firms during the war in Ukraine.

Nicaragua’s deepening ties with Russia, China, and Iran create new models for authoritarian cooperation and position Nicaragua as a strategic outpost for autocratic powers in the Western Hemisphere. According to Maradiaga, the nation has become an “aircraft carrier” for such powers to operate across Latin America, threatening democratic norms for the entire region.

Cross-border persecution 

The statistics on exile tell a similarly devastating story. A total of 452 Nicaraguans have been arbitrarily stripped of their nationality since 2023, while over 440,000 Nicaraguans have fled seeking asylum abroad to escape persecution and economic collapse. At least 46 journalists were forced into exile in 2024 alone, adding to the 283 media professionals forced to flee since 2018.

Authorities have removed birth certificates and academic records of expelled individuals from the civil registry, while erasing critics' personal data from social security systems, depriving many of their pensions. In May 2023, the Supreme Court permanently suspended the licences of 25 lawyers and notaries, ruling that, as de facto "foreigners," they could no longer practice in Nicaragua.

The psychological warfare extends to those still inside the country. Prison authorities subject political prisoners to cruel treatment, including intentional underfeeding with spoiled food, continuous interrogation, extended periods of darkness or light, and solitary confinement. Women prisoners face regular strip searches, degrading treatment, threats, and gender-based violence.

For Maradiaga, these numbers are not just statistics; they represent personal friends and fellow prisoners. "I feel the pain of my compatriots as my own," he said. “The only path forward is to continue speaking the truth.”

Broader implications for human rights

While the decision to expel UNHCR sends an ominous message about the worsening state of human rights in the country, Maradiaga says the community's response has been fragmented and insufficient.

Countries including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Spain offered protection or nationality to the 316 Nicaraguans stripped of citizenship in February 2023, but broader coordination remains lacking. Neighbouring Costa Rica, which hosts over 200,000 Nicaraguan refugees, has recently become less receptive to asylum seekers, leaving many vulnerable to deportation.

“By cutting off cooperation with the UN Refugee Agency, Ortega signals that he doesn’t care about global opinion – that he will violate human rights and generate refugees, yet slam the door on any assistance or monitoring,” said Maradiaga.  

“He’s also testing the world’s resolve: will democracies stand by and watch as a country in the heart of the Americas slides into absolute dictatorship, or will they act? So far, frankly, the regime has survived on the world’s hesitation and division.”

Political will - and lack of

According to Maradiaga, the solution requires coordinated pressure across multiple fronts. He is calling for harsher targeted sanctions against regime officials, scrutiny of international loans that prop up the Sandinista government, and increased support for Nicaraguan refugees. Most importantly, he argues, the international community must send a clear message of solidarity with the Nicaraguan people while isolating the regime diplomatically and economically. The problem, though, is that so far political will remains lacking, says Maradiaga.

Still, despite the overwhelming repression, Maradiaga says there is hope in the resilience of ordinary Nicaraguans. "Behind every statistic, every refugee or prisoner, there is a personal tale of someone who refused to give up on the idea of a free Nicaragua," he said. Even as the regime strips away citizenship, confiscates property, and forces families into exile, it cannot destroy what he calls the "Nicaragua that lives in people's hearts."

This psychological resistance represents the regime's greatest threat. The more Ortega tightens his grip, the more apparent his illegitimacy becomes. Maradiaga sees the bitter irony clearly: a 79-year-old former Sandinista commander who once helped overthrow the US-backed Somoza dictatorship now surpasses it in systematic repression.

The confiscation of Maradiaga's family home represents both personal loss and political strategy. But for him, it also crystallises the moral stakes: "When a government chooses to isolate itself rather than listen to global concern for its citizens, it is effectively declaring a war against its own people's rights and dignity."

"History will judge the Ortega regime harshly," Maradiaga concluded, "but it will also honour the bravery of Nicaragua's people and the principles we refused to abandon."