Nicaraguan security forces blocked a Holy Week street procession in Masaya on Monday, chasing down youths who defied a prohibition on carrying out the Catholic tradition. Videos and photos on social media show police threatening and persecuting people, and religious symbols strewn in the streets in the aftermath, reports Confidencial.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega banned Easter processions this year, due to unspecified security concerns. The move comes after the government suspended ties with the Vatican last month following comments by Pope Francis describing Ortega’s government as a “crude dictatorship.” (Reuters)

Some analysts say the suspension is likely aimed at quashing potential venues for protest and dissent.

Members of the Catholic clergy have been outspoken critics of the government’s human rights abuses and political repression. (Wilson Center)

On Monday night Nicaraguan authorities expelled a Panamanian priest, Donancio Alarcón, who was abandoned barefoot on the border with Honduras. (Confidencial)

Regional

• Catholic traditionin the world for human rights defenders last year, according to Front Line Defenders. There were 186 killings – 46% of the global total. Mexico, Brazil and Honduras were also in the global top five, maintaining Latin America’s ongoing status as the most deadly region in the world for rights defenders. (Guardian)

Mexico

• Indigenous anti-mining activist Eustacio Alcalá was found dead in Michoacán, days after he disappeared while driving on a highway known for violent incidents on Saturday. He had led a largely successful fight to prevent an iron ore mine from opening near his Nahua village of San Juan Huitzontla. (Associated Press)

Haiti

• Two new reports by Haiti-based organizations show the reach of violent gangs in Haiti society: at least 195 deaths last month, and 389 kidnappings in the first quarter of this year. (Miami Herald)

Regional Relations

• Several U.S. lawmakers have asked for a federal investigation into the illicit trafficking of firearms from the United States into the Caribbean. (Miami Herald)
  
  
• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, asking him to curb fentanyl shipments, while also complaining about “rude” U.S. pressure to crack down on the drug. (Guardian)
  
  
• Cuba freed Humberto Eladio Real Suárez, who served 28 years in prison in Cuba after attempting an armed incursion into the country from Miami in 1994. (Miami Herald)

Brazil

• At least four children were killed and four other injured in an attack on a Brazilian preschool in Santa Catarina state. (Reuters)

Colombia

• Colombian officials began to evacuate 40 families after a volcano in the center of the country showed signs of potentially imminent eruption. (Associated Press)

Chile

• The inhabitants of a rural community on the edge of Chile’s Atacama Desert are able to harvest around 500,000 liters of water per year, thanks to fog nets installed 17 years ago, reports Mongabay.

Jordana Timerman/Latin America Daily Briefing