The retired general Humberto Ortegabrother of the current president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, who was under police surveillance after his interrogation The “dictatorial” succession of the head of state died this Monday at 77 years old after cardiac arrestas reported by the Military Medical Corps of the Nicaraguan Army.
“The Directorate of the Dr. Alejandro Dávila Bolaños Military Hospital School of the Military Medical Corps of the Nicaraguan Army announces that on September 30, 2024, at 1:55 a.m. (07:55 GMT), the patient Humberto Ortega Saavedra“, 77 years old, presented a cardiorespiratory arrest, and after treating him with cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers, he did not come out of this state, being declared dead at 2:30 a.m. (08:30 GMT),” indicated the army in a press release. .
Former army chief and younger brother of President Ortega admitted as much on July 11 “with a complex health problem” and the day before he presented a “sudden deterioration of his condition with cardiogenic shock and an altered state of consciousness which required intensive therapeutic treatment to maintain blood pressure levels”, according to the press release collected by Efe.
On Sunday, the army had already reported that General Ortega’s health had deteriorated. “sudden deterioration” over the last few hours. On May 21, Nicaraguan police installed a medical unit in the house of the retired general, a measure interpreted as house arrest by the opposition media in exile.
The custody began after he said in an interview that his brother Daniel, 78, lacked successors and that his power would not withstand his death. On May 28, President Ortega declared at a public event that his brother (but did not mention his name) had committed an act of “treason” in 1992 for having decorated an American military officer.
In a statement published by the official media El19Digital, the children and grandchildren of Humberto Ortega expressed their “deep pain at death” and asked for “respect for the privacy and mourning” of the family.
Sandinista guerrilla
The Ortega brothers were part of the Sandinista guerrillas who fought the dictatorship of the Somoza familywho ruled the Central American country with an iron fist for more than four decades (1936-1979). “We recognize the strategic contribution of General Ortega as a Sandinista activist since his adolescence,” the government underlined in a press release in which it spoke of his “courage”. in “revolutionary” military actions, collect Eph.
After the triumph of the revolution in 1979, Humberto Ortega becomes head of the army until 1995, while his brother took the reins of government, first as a member of a board of directors and then individually.
“We appreciate his contribution to the stages of the clandestine, guerrilla and insurgency struggle, as well as to the initial training and leadership of the Nicaraguan army during the cruel years of counter-revolutionary war imposed by the United States of North America,” added the Executive.
In 1990, Daniel Ortega was defeated in the electionsalthough he returned to power in 2007 and has since been successively re-elected in elections contested by the United States and the European Union.
Their brother, Camilo Ortega, 27, died in February 1978 during the Sandinista armed struggle against the Somoza dictatorship.
