Tag Archives: Nicaragua

Costa Rica gets 100 illegal immigrants a day hoping to get to U.S.

Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera addresses the United Nations General Assembly in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S. September 20, 2016.

By Hugh Bronstein

NEW YORK (Reuters) – More than 100 illegal immigrants are entering the small Central American country of Costa Rica every day, looking for “coyotes” to take them across the Nicaraguan border and on toward the United States, President Luis Solis said on Friday.

Eighty-five percent of the new arrivals are from Haiti by way of Brazil, where many settled after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake but whose construction jobs have disappeared now that the Rio Olympics are over and the country wallows in recession, Solis said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“The phenomenon has shifted quite significantly,” Solis said.

His government has set up centers that offer the migrants basic shelter and food, before they take the day-long bus trip through Costa Rica to the Nicaraguan frontier. Nicaragua does not allow the migrants to enter, so they are forced into the world of “coyotes,” or illegal guides, often linked to criminal gangs.

Solis said the 15 percent of arrivals who are not Haitians are Cubans as well as Africans and Asians who make their way across the Atlantic to Brazil and then trudge through Colombia and Panama to get to Costa Rica.

“Migration is a global phenomenon and it is not new. But something unexpected is happening, a refurbished flow of migrants is on the move in Latin America,” Solis said.

So far, Solis said, Costa Rica can handle the inflow and outflow of immigrants passing through the country.

The United States, however, responding to a surge in Haitian immigrants, will end special protections for them dating back to the devastating 2010 earthquake, the Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday.

“What if they start deciding to stay on Costa Rica after hearing that the United States has changed its tolerance policy and is going to start deporting them?” Solis said. “That’s a concern.”

More than 5,000 Haitians have entered the United States without visas this fiscal year through Oct. 1, according to Department of Homeland Security officials, up from 339 in fiscal year 2015.

Panama’s president, Juan Carlos Varela, said this week that  Haiti’s economy and democracy must be fortified in order to stanch the rapid outflow of people from the impoverished island nation.

In February, Michel Martelly stepped down as president of Haiti without a successor. New elections are scheduled for Oct. 9.

(Reporting by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Meteorite Strikes Nicaraguan Capital

A huge explosion struck Managua, Nicaragua and officials say that a small meteorite caused it.

The meteor struck near the international airport just outside the city of 1.2 million people.  Officials say that the impact left a crater 39 feet wide and the impact shook the entire city.

Amazingly, no one was reported injured by the strike.

“We are convinced that this was a meteorite. We have seen the crater from the impact,” said Wilfredo Strauss of the Seismic Institute.  Strauss said that seismographs show a small wave when the meteorite hit the ground and a stronger one when the sound impacted the area.

Witnesses near the impact site say they heard a blast they thought was an explosion and then smelled something as if something had burned.

NASA had said last week that 2014 RC at the time of its closest approach should have been 25,000 miles from the planet and should have been over New Zealand at its closest approach.

Nicaragua Rocked Series Of Quakes

Residents of Nicaragua have been on edge for days after a series of earthquakes rocked the country.

A string of quakes that started Thursday night with a magnitude 6.1 quake has caused many residents to sleep on the ground outside of their homes in fear that a quake while they are sleeping would collapse their houses.

The country’s government has placed the nation on red alert and is urging them to continue sleeping outside until further notice.

The Thursday quake was followed by a stronger 6.6 magnitude quake on Friday.  Sunday night, 4.6 and 5.6 magnitude quakes kept most of the nation awake through the night.

“We didn’t sleep a wink last night,” Ana Maria Echaniz, 30, told the Associated Press. “It’s continuous anxiety, fear that comes and goes all the time.”

The first lady of Nicaragua, the government’s official spokeswoman, told state media that the recent activity has reactivated the Managua fault that caused a 6.2 magnitude quake in 1972 that killed close to 10,000 people.

One resident told the AP that the fear is so bad people jump in the night from a gust of wind because it “breaks the silence.”

Residents Flee Nicaraguan Volcano

Nicaraguan authorities are using army forces to evacuate people from the base of the San Cristobal volcano after it began to erupt Tuesday night.

The authorities declared an “amber alert” for a 2 square mile area around the volcano warning of the risk of major eruption. Airlines were also told to avoid flying over the western part of the country due to ash plumes. Continue reading →

Mass Evacuations At Nicaragua’s San Cristobal Volcano

The San Cristobal volcano began spewing ash and gas forcing the Nicaraguan government to evacuate around 3,000 residents from around the mountain.

Government officials say that up to 20,000 people could be displaced by the volcano. The volcano began to erupt on Saturday morning following the sound of violent explosions on the mountain. A 2.5 mile column of smoke and ash is being seen coming from the top of the mountain. Continue reading →