Rayneia Gabrielle da Costa Lima

“Loving, studious, with a great sensitivity for the needy and most vulnerable”

Murdered in Managua, July 23, 2018

Rayneia Gabrielle da Costa Lima came from Brazil in 2013 to study medicine at the American University (UAM) in Nicaragua. In the words of her mother, María José da Costa, Rayneia was always loving and studious since she was a little girl, and had a great sensitivity for the needy and most vulnerable.

Despite their economic constraints, her mother always supported her daughter’s dream of becoming a doctor. Rayneia also liked to travel, to know other cultures, and she fell in love with Nicaragua and its natural beauty.

Facts

Rayneia was hit by a bullet from a shotgun. The bullet entered her thorax, after perforating the door of the vehicle she was driving.

On the night of July 23, 2018, Rayneia Gabrielle da Costa Lima was driving in Reparto Montserrat, a residential zone with a lot of police security due to the student occupation of the nearby universities. The neighbors in the area said they heard an intense burst of gunshots, similar to the attack at the UNAN. Ten minutes later, they heard another, less intense burst of shots.

Dr. Ernesto Medina, at that time the president of the American University (UAM) where Rayneia was studying, was notified by various students who were on call at the Military Hospital that night, and who received her as she was dying. Some hours later, he announced that the young woman was the victim of shots from a “group of paramilitaries.” The government quickly declared that it was a private security guard who had shot her, but its report did not explain how a security guard had an automatic assault rifle in his possession. Her mother, María José, expressed her solidarity with the other mothers who had lost a child because like them, her daughter’s murder made her feel that she had lost part of her life. She hopes that an investigation will take place and that the guilty will be tried and convicted.