Eduardo González
The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration welcomed a group of 245 Nicaraguan refugees from Costa Rica this Thursday as part of the National Resettlement Program.
The refugees arrived at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport in the largest operation carried out this year. Up to 25 institutions, organizations, and entities participated in the operation, including the Asylum and Refugee Office (OAR), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), AENA (Spanish Airports and Air Navigation), the Civil Guard, the Border Police (CEFRONT), the Red Cross, and 14 collaborating entities of the International Reception and Protection System.
International protection for Nicaraguan refugees from Costa Rica is one of the priority protection areas of the National Resettlement Program, the Ministry stated in a press release.
The reception of resettled individuals has been coordinated by the State Secretariat for Migration through the Directorate General for Humanitarian Assistance and the International Protection Reception System, as well as their subsequent transfer to the National Reception System, managed by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration.
The National Resettlement Program for 2025 was approved by the Council of Ministers on December 23, 2024, and includes a commitment to resettle 1,200 refugees in Spain throughout the year. During 2025, the program has facilitated the resettlement of 696 refugees, 341 of whom came from Costa Rica. Most of them had participated in the selection mission in May 2025.
The transfer to places within the reception system has the primary objective of ensuring the well-being of families and promoting integration through a pathway that prepares this group for independence. On the other hand, the process of allocating places in the reception system is carried out by assessing the individual characteristics of the resettled individuals, their ties to the country, and the vulnerabilities identified in each case.
Between early 2023 and late 2024, the Spanish government granted citizenship by naturalization to 146 Nicaraguan dissidents whom the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo (co-presidents of Nicaragua) had expelled from the country and stripped of their citizenship.
Among the beneficiaries of this measure were diplomats, former state officials, human rights defenders, Sandinista dissidents, opposition members, journalists, academics, students, businesspeople, merchants, and prominent figures such as Cristiana Chamorro, a presidential pre-candidate in the 2021 elections; and journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro Barrios, founder of the local newspaper ‘Confidencial’ and son of former president Violeta Chamorro. The sociologist Gertrudis Guerrero, wife of the exiled Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez; or the writer Gioconda Belli.
