When a Rebel Faces Rebellion

It was the beating heart of Nicaragua’s popular uprising.

Then police and paramilitary forces stormed into the defiant neighborhood in the town of Masaya, determined to bring it to its knees. Now it is the bleeding heart.

The neighborhood, Monimbó, had taken on outsize meaning for protesters trying to bring down President Daniel Ortega, himself once an outsize revolutionary figure. Hundreds of people have been killed around the country.

This week, Monimbó residents tried to fight off the police from behind their barricades, but they were overwhelmed. Reports said several were killed and dozens were wounded.