Nicaragua asks International Red Cross to depart the country

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced Monday that it has ended its mission in Nicaragua and pulled out of the country at the demand of the government.

The request comes nearly two years after President Daniel Ortega expelled the ICRC delegate to Nicaragua.

The Geneva-based humanitarian group and the Ortega government signed an accord in January 2019 allowing ICRC officials to visit prisoners following a broad anti-government uprising a year earlier that led to mass arrests.

"At the request of Nicaraguan authorities, the ICRC has closed its office in Managua, concluding its humanitarian mission," the group said in a statement from Mexico City.

In addition to monitoring the condition of prisoners, and offering clinics on international humanitarian law, the ICRC also supported the work of the national Red Cross.

But the National Assembly ordered the Nicaraguan Red Cross shut down in May, confiscating its properties and accusing it of tending to protesters injured in the 2018 uprising, which it asserted was a US-backed attempt to topple the government.

More than 2,000 private organizations, business alliances, charities, universities and other groups have been shuttered by the government, accused of violating local laws.

Hundreds of government critics have been detained, while others have been stripped of their citizenship and property and expelled from the country.