Erick Antonio Jiménez López

On July 17, 2018, the government mounted its so-called “Operation Clean-Up” in Monimbó, Masaya. The protesters responded to the assault by well-armed paramilitaries with rocks and homemade mortars, an unequal fight given the weapons used in the attack against the neighborhood.

Pickup trucks filled with paramilitaries had entered at two in the morning at different points of the city: Las Flores, the entrance to the Museum, Quebrada Honda, Pacaya, El Jocote, La Vuelta del Chivo, Nandayuri, and by the old road to Niquinohomo. At nine in the morning, Erick Jiménez López was a few meters from a barricade when he was hit by a bullet in his chest. All of those who had manned the barricades were surrounded by paramilitaries, who launched a ruthless attack on the civilian population.

 

“Cuando mi mamá se dio cuenta se puso como loca, todos lloraban, no creían que él estuviera muerto. Yo sentí un gran coraje y me preguntaba por qué a él y no a mí… También yo estuve ahí, bajo las balas. Las balas me dieron la fuerza, el valor, el coraje que aún se siente en el corazón”

Nelly. Tía materna