Ismael Isaías Pérez Martínez
24 Years Old - Worker
Ismael Isaías Pérez Martínez
“My son was full of life; he was 24 and had his whole future ahead of him”
Murdered in Managua on April 21, 2018
Ismael Isaías Pérez Martínez died on April 21, 2018, at 24 years of age. His sister, Migdalia Elizabeth Pérez Martínez, remembers him as a happy, friendly young man. “He was a positive person, sure of himself, a fighter. He started to work when he was 17 in the sugar refinery and then was a security guard. But what he liked most was construction; he built the family house with his father, who is a bricklayer. He had ideas; he was ingenious, creative and intelligent. I admired him a lot! With a huge effort he finished high school and aspired to enroll in the university.”
His mother, Mariana Quintero, describes him as a rebel, but also playful and friendly. “Sometimes he was affectionate and for Mother’s Day he always showed up with his cupcake,” she said. “His desire was to work, have his family and his own house. When he went to work in Managua I told him to stay here, that with the little shop I have we’d never be without food. We grew corn here and have chickens, but he didn’t want to be a burden, so he left.”
His mother recalls that the Sunday before traveling to Managua, they went out together to the wharf at Potosí to visit relatives who live in the area. They went swimming and ate fish. Ismael was happy playing with his cousins and the kids from around there; he filmed them all with his cell phone because he loved to record video and take lots of photos.
Migdalia explains that Isaías, as she called him, went to Managua to work in masonry with his older brother, and that when he died he had only been in the capital barely a week. “My other brother says that on Saturday, April 21, they went together to collect their pay. They separated at about 7 at night and Isaías went off in a taxi. There was a lot of violence in Managua that day, as the police and paramilitaries attacked the Polytechnic University (UPOLI) and the barricades erected by residents and students in that sector. For their part, tough guys from the Sandinista Youth went around pillaging the businesses and supermarkets in the city’s eastern neighborhoods.
At about 10:00 that night, Ismael was near the Rubenia bridge when shooting broke out. He died of multiple gunshot wounds. According to information from the Forensic Examiner’s Office, police from Station VI found his body near the Subasta while making their morning rounds on Sunday.
That same morning, a call made from Ismael’s own cell phone asked the family members to come to the Forensic Examiner’s to identify a body. Doña Mariana, overwhelmed by such a phone call, asked Migdalia to go and to make the funeral arrangements.
“I got to the Forensic Examiner’s at 6:00 that evening,” says Migdalia. “They showed me the body. It was him. He had bullet holes in his neck and thorax and a lot in his side. They riddled him with bullets. They shot him like an animal.”
It was hard to transfer the coffin all the way to Posoltega where the family lived, because they couldn’t get past the roadblocks on the highway. There was one in Nagarote and another in La Paz Centro. “When we finally got to the house at about 1:00 in the morning, everyone was there waiting. Friends arrived in two buses and we buried him on Monday,” she adds.
Ismael’s mother said that “when your son dies of an illness, you know and are sort of prepared, but when he is snatched away like this it’s horrible.”
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