Wendell Francisco Rivera Narváez

“They will never take away our memory of him”

Murdered in Managua on June 22nd, 2018

On the night of June 22, 2018, 17-year-old Wendell Francisco Rivera Narváez was murdered with a shot to the head in the Santa Elena neighborhood in Managua, next to the Agrarian University. He was returning home after playing soccer with his friends and older brother Reynaldo Jose when two trucks showed up, filled with police and masked gunmen shooting in different directions.

Although the brothers were walking side by side, the older brother detected danger and made his younger brother move forward and take cover. A policeman launched a grenade that caused confusion and threw Reynaldo to the ground while Wendell was able to hide on the porch of a nearby house. When the older brother was able to stand up, 15 police surrounded him and beat and kicked him. This led his younger brother to come out from where he was hiding to defend him. He begged the assailants to let them go home.

With hands up, the young boy begged for mercy but the assailants also attacked him. One of the masked gunmen took Reynaldo by the neck, threw him in the back of the truck—a patrol vehicle of the Police’s VI District—and inside the vehicle they struck him in the head with a AK-47 rifle, leaving him unconscious as they took him to El Chipote, the city prison. Minutes later Wendell was assassinated with a single shot.

“It was a murder committed by the regime that has established itself in our country,” said one of his aunts a year after his death. She adds, “We are here, present, remembering my nephew. His memory is something that they will never be able to take away from us because he lives in our minds and in our hearts.”

Facts

On June 22nd, 2018 at approximately 10:00pm, Wendell Francisco Rivera Narváez was walking near the second entrance to the Santa Elena neighborhood. When he and his brother passed the central office of the DGI, they were pursued by armed men in two Toyota Hilux trucks. Wendell hid but Reynaldo was captured by the masked gunmen who began to beat him with a homemade mortar that they found in his backpack.

Wendell came out of his hiding place to defend his brother when he was detained by the police. They then threw Reynaldo in the truck. As the truck took off he heard a gunshot. Around 10:40pm, friends of Wendell found him with a gunshot wound to the head that had entered his forehead and exited through his left ear. He was taken to the Alemán Hospital where he died at 12:35am on June 23rd. The medical record states the cause of death as “ destruction of vital areas of the brain.”

El 22 de junio de 2018, alrededor de las 10 de la noche, Wendell Francisco Rivera Narváez se movilizaba en el sector de la segunda entrada del barrio Santa Elena. Al pasar frente a la sede de la DGI, fueron perseguidos por hombres armados a bordo de dos camionetas Hilux. Wendell se escondió pero Reynaldo se dejó atrapar por los encapuchados, que comenzaron a golpearlo con un mortero que portaba en su mochila.