To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement.
One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.
REPORTERS © FRANCE 24
13:04
Issued on: 30/01/2026 - 12:19
From the show
Since a deadly crackdown on protests in 2018, the regime in Nicaragua has sealed the country off from scrutiny. Opponents are driven into exile, local independent media are silenced and no foreign journalists are allowed in. What's left is a media blackout, turning the second-poorest nation in the Americas into a tropical North Korea. FRANCE 24's Laurence Cuvillier and Matthieu Comin attempted to break this silence from Costa Rica, where several hundred thousand Nicaraguans live in exile.
At the heart of Nicaragua's authoritarian turn is an extraordinary political arrangement: the country is ruled by a husband-and-wife team: "co-presidents" Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
Read moreNicaragua amends constitution, grants 'absolute power' to president and his wife
Once esteemed figures of the Sandinista revolution that overthrew the US-backed Somoza dictatorship in 1979, they're now widely accused of betraying the ideals that brought them to power.
Most of the revolution's former leaders are either in prison, in exile or dead.
English (US) · 