'Why did you kill my family?'

Nicaragua has been through huge upheaval this year. In April, anti-government protesters demanded the socialist president, Daniel Ortega, step down over unpopular pension reforms. However, he refused to negotiate and instead sent in the security forces.

Hundreds were killed in the space of weeks. Among them was Cinthia's family, who died in an arson attack.

She narrowly escaped the fire and says pro-government paramilitary groups are responsible.

The BBC's Will Grant spoke to Cinthia, who is now in hiding fearing for her safety, and members of one of those underground armed groups.

Revealed: Ice teams up with Nicaragua even as US decries Ortega’s crackdown

White House condemns Daniel Ortega’s ‘indiscriminate violence’ while countries join forces to deport Nicaraguans from US

The Trump administration is quietly partnering with a government it publicly accuses of killing its own people, in an effort to speed up the deportation of Nicaraguan citizens, the Guardian can reveal.

The partnership between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the government of Nicaragua’s president, Daniel Ortega, began a week before mass protests erupted in the Central American country, and it continues despite a war of words between Washington and Managua.

This week, the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, declared the Ortega government responsible for “indiscriminate violence” that has left scores dead and thousands injured since protests began three months ago. “The United States stands with the people of Nicaragua,” she said.

Ortega, meanwhile, has described the protesters as coup-plotters and terrorists involved in a US-backed conspiracy.

But when it comes to deporting Nicaraguans who live in the United States, the two governments are still working hand in hand.

Ice officials signed a memorandum of understanding with Managua in April to expedite the deportation of Nicaraguan citizens – shortly after Donald Trump revoked temporary protective status (TPS) for around 2,500 Nicaraguan immigrants.

“Enhancing cooperation with our foreign partners to streamline and improve the removal process is a key part of enforcing our immigration laws and protecting our homeland,” Ice’s assistant director Marlen Piñeiro said in a press release announcing the deal.

Under the agreement, Ice provides training for “authorized foreign partners” on how to access the US’s electronic travel document system, a database of foreign nationals that includes biographic and biometric information that its partners can use to identify their citizens.

The system allows the Nicaraguan government to upload travel documents that Ice agents can then print out “at detention facilities or field offices”.

The deal was signed by Nicaragua’s deputy interior minister Luis Cañas, who said the agreement demonstrated his government’s commitment to facilitate “the safe and orderly return of Nicaraguan nationals”, according to the Ice announcement.

An Ice spokesperson, Brendan Raedy, confirmed the Nicaraguan government was an active partner of the agency. Memoranda of understanding (MOUs) had also been signed with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, he said.

The cooperation continues as an increasing number of Nicaraguans flee the country to escape Ortega’s crackdown.

Most head to Costa Rica, where 23,000 have applied for asylum since the unrest started, according to the United Nations.

“But we can expect a wave of Nicaraguans coming to the US in the coming months as they flee political violence and instability,” said Geoff Thale, of the Washington Office on Latin America thinktank. “The death toll is conservatively estimated at 300 – some human rights groups put the figure as high as 450 – since April. That’s a stunning figure for a country of only 6 million people.”

The Ortega government is responsible for the vast majority of that violence, according to the UN. Investigators from the UN human rights office were dispatched to the country in June to investigate allegations of state-sponsored violence, including killings.

In one incident, a family of six was burned alive after allegedly refusing to let pro-government paramiliaries use their home as a sniper’s perch. Neighbours told the Guardian that police officers shot at anyone who attempted to help the family.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has described a “climate of intimidation and insecurity” in Nicaragua, and specifically denounced the “excessive use of force” by police and violence on the part of “pro-government elements [that] has continued to escalate”.

Carolina Jiménez, Amnesty International’s deputy director for research in the Americas, said: “The evidence shows a pattern of excessive, lethal use of force. This is state-sponsored violence and certainly many of the people fleeing now could be seen as in need of international protection.”

“We strongly believe that it’s a terrible idea to send people back to a country that’s experiencing such traumatic civil and political unrest.”

Opponents of the government have also committed acts of violence. Jimenez said, by Amnesty’s count, 19 police officers had been killed since protests began.

For people seeking asylum in the US, who they are fleeing is legally crucial.

In June, the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, announced that those seeking refuge in the US would not be permitted to stay even if they could prove a credible fear of domestic abuse or gang violence. Sessions contrasted such refugees with those who face persecution at the hands of a government.

In a letter to Trump last month, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers noted the incongruity, and called on the president to reinstate TPS for Nicaraguans.

TPS is an immigration status granted to certain countries experiencing armed conflict or natural disaster, protecting individuals from deportation and allowing them to work in the US.

“Over the past three months, your administration has continuously spoken out against Daniel Ortega’s many abuses,” the letter said. “[W]e believe it would be irresponsible for the U.S. to send these individuals to Nicaragua to face violence, chaos and oppression.”

For now, the US is still working with the Nicaraguan government to do just that. And while Managua speaks of a regime-change plot from Washington, it remains a partner on drug interdiction, having hosted a high-level delegation of US military and Drug Enforcement Agency officials just over a month before the latest protests.

“While successive US governments have been critical of the Ortega government’s steps to [consolidate] political power,” said Thale, “they have all been pleased with Nicaraguan cooperation on security issues … and with Nicaraguan-US commercial relations.”

In part, Thale said, that was how “the Nicaraguan government inoculated itself from criticism.”

Not all security cooperation continues. In June, Laura Dogu, the US ambassador to Managua, announced that the US had secured the return of several vehicles it donated to the Nicaraguan national police, on the grounds that they had been used to “repress peaceful demonstrators”.