Nicaragua releases inmates amid pandemic

Nicaragua released more than 2,800 prisoners on Wednesday, a day after the death of an inmate who reportedly suffered respiratory problems, while the government maintained there was no local spread of the coronavirus in the country.

The government said in a statement that it was releasing the prisoners to house arrest as a gesture for upcoming Mother's Day, but also mentioned that the release included elderly inmates and those with chronic illnesses.

It made no reference to COVID-19, which has emerged in prison populations around the world and poses a greater risk to people in those categories.

The mother of political prisoner Uriel José Pérez reported to the Permanent Commission on Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation, that the 29-year-old had been removed from the same prison in Tipitapa and hospitalised with severe pneumonia.

They said he was in intensive care and on a ventilator.

"Release them all, free them all, because they are all going to die in there (in the prison)," she said.

Martha Lorena Escobar, mother of 30-year-old inmate José Ángel Gonzalez Escobar, said her son was sick and was not getting any medical attention.

Both mothers were outside the Modelo prison on Wednesday hoping for more information about their health.

None of the approximately 90 political prisoners detained and still held following anti-government protests that began in April 2018 were believed to have been included in the release.

Nearly half of the prisoners released on Wednesday came from the Modelo prison in Tipitapa.

The Nicaraguan government has only reported 25 confirmed COVID-19 cases and eight deaths, far lower than other countries in the region.

Reports have emerged of "express burials" carried out by public hospitals without families being present and growing numbers of deaths classified as atypical pneumonia.

(Image Credit: AP)