Nicaraguan authorities have prohibited taxi drivers from transporting migrants from Cuba, Haiti and African countries from the Augusto César Sandino airport in Managua to the border with Honduras. According to him diary The Pressthe drivers assure that this is another Government strategy to “take private companies out of the game” and monopolize the income generated by migrant trafficking.
“What I know is informally, from my neighbor, who has been dedicating himself to these trips for more than a year, and he told me that yes, indeed, since last week, airport staff prevents people from boarding who are going to the border. “confirms Julio, collaborator of 14 intervene in Nicaragua, who has been attentive to the situation.
“They are even being prevented from accessing the gas station in front of the airport, which is where Cubans used to board their vehicles,” he adds.
Julio explains that the measure does not surprise him. “That is not from now, in any case what they are doing is finishing removing the private ones, because since the exodus began the Government has been directly involved in the transfer of migrants,” he says.
“That is not from now, in any case what they are doing is finishing removing the private ones, because since the exodus began the Government has been directly involved in the transfer of the migrants”
Interviewed by the newspaper The Press, many of the taxi drivers were upset with the scant explanations of the agents who expelled them from the area around the air terminal. “Now the Police send patrols around, looking for ways to fine you. You can’t make the trip, you can’t go near the airport, if you park two kilometers away and want to enter on foot, they won’t let you, they’ll take you out. They tell you that you have to go out, there is no permit for that and the only thing they know how to say is that ‘they are superior orders’ and that they do their job,” says one of the drivers.
According to the taxi drivers, the police authorities, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Transportation Regulatory Institute maintain that everything is due to “relaxations” with the transportation of migrants and complaints from the taxi drivers who officially operate in the terminal. “It’s not like that, they were doing their job,” refutes one of the drivers.
In reality, they say, they are displacing them because “the Government or I don’t know which officials are looking for ways to take over that income. They want to put buses in, they want to take it over and that is why they put so many pretexts and restrictions on us,” he laments.
The taxi drivers explained that the authorities are exaggerating the situation because, although it is true that many drivers did not leave until they found a safe trip with migrants, in reality they were all working without causing problems.
“Everyone made their best offer and since there were many of us, it seemed like a hassle. Now we are all hurt and trying to figure out how to resolve it,” he said.
“The taxi driver union has not wanted to protest because there is fear, there is fear because they prescribe you jail,” he continues. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain clients, and when they do and are discovered, they are removed from the taxi.
The drivers explain that, as an alternative, they have had to look for private places to park, generally food establishments where they consume some food to justify the parking and then walk to the airport in search of customers.
“The taxi driver union has not wanted to protest because there is fear, there is fear because they prescribe you jail”
“They are taking away our daily bread for our families, because that generated money for us. This hurts us economically because living in Nicaragua is not cheap,” they say. Normally, they say, each taxi driver made between three and four weekly trips to the border to transport migrants and charged Africans, Haitians and Cubans $50 per person.
In Nicaragua, numerous businesses have been created to offer transportation, accommodation and food services whose almost exclusive clients are migrants as they move through the country. This is the case of taxi drivers, who have established routes and prices for the transfer to the border with Honduras.
“It is common to go to Ocotal, Las Manos and sometimes to Guasaule,” they say, but even this path has become difficult. “They stop you and you don’t have to present your documents, but you have to prepare your 100 pesos for each police checkpoint. Imagine if there are six checkpoints. They don’t have to stop you because the migrants entered Nicaragua through the airport legally, we were not doing no type of human trafficking, we are only providing our transportation service,” they explain.
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