<p>Activists opposing Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega crouched behind brick barriers, threw rocks and fired homemade firearms against authorities and government sympathizers in a street battle to hold the neighborhood of Monimbo, Mayasa, on July 17.</p><p>News reports</a> named Monimbo as a “symbolically important” center for anti-government resistance that had been held by resisters since the mass protests of April, 2018</a>.</p><p>“This is the reality of living in Masaya,” says Gutierrez in the video. “The people, all the people entrenched in their houses in fear of the national police.”</p><p>He goes on to say that many people took the example of the students who fought in the protests on April 18</a> and have taken up arms against government authorities. However, news reports</a> quote some local citizens as being pro-government forces.</p><p>Towards the end of the video, one man holds out a handful of spent shotgun shells and bullet casings, saying “these are not caramels, this is what they’re shooting.”</p><p>Three people were reportedly</a> killed in the fight, and the resisters were ultimately outnumbered and outgunned.</p><p>Government forces took the neighborhood by the early afternoon, according to reports</a>. Credit: Gabriel Gutierrez via Storyful</p><br />
