The UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua said on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, that the government of co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo is responsible for the deaths in state custody of eight people detained on political grounds since 2018, among them Miskito Indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera and Humberto Ortega, the president’s brother, according to the report released on Tuesday and reported by The Hindu.

The report details contradictions in the government’s account of Rivera’s death: he spent 32 months in prison with almost no contact with his family before dying in May 2026, and the official statement attributed it to complications from an earlier COVID-19 infection, an explanation an independent assessment by Physicians for Human Rights called “not medically coherent.” The experts documented the enforced disappearance of at least 161 people since 2018 and called for information on 29 whose whereabouts remain unknown. Co-president Rosario Murillo said Rivera received medical care and family support; asked for comment, Nicaragua’s government declined to respond.