Nicaraguans learn to swim to get to America

ESTELI, NICARAGUA (AFP) - In a recreation centre pool in Nicaragua, novice swimmers stand waist-deep in two rows and churn up the water to recreate the choppiness of a turbulent river.

Ms Darling Molina battles through the artificial waves, training to illegally cross the Rio Grande, the river also known as the Rio Bravo, which looms large between her and a dream of a better life in the United States.

"We are about to go on a journey, my (16-year-old) daughter and I," the 38-year-old told Agence France-Presse during a training session in the northwestern city of Esteli.

"Neither of us knew how to swim," Ms Molina said, and the lessons have given them "more courage" for the perilous trip.

Ms Molina and her daughter are hoping to make the north-bound voyage by road via Honduras and Guatemala to Mexico, then wade and swim several dozen metres across the Rio Grande to American soil.

In total, it is a journey of more than 3,000km to America, fraught with danger - and not only from the choppy waterway that is the final resting place of many an undocumented Central American migrant.

Since mass protests in 2018 against the government of President Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua has battled a political and economic crisis worsened by the coronavirus pandemic.

As the government jails opponents and does little to address a 30 per cent poverty rate, the number of Nicaraguans seeking a better life elsewhere continues to rise.

According to the United States Customs and Border protection office, nearly 112,000 Nicaraguans were arrested at the border between January last year and February this year.

In February alone, the number was 13,295 - up from 706 in the same month last year.

Ms Molina is one of about 20 people attending free classes offered by swimming instructor Mario Venerio every Friday.

The course includes basic survival skills and first aid, and was advertised via radio and social media by Mr Venerio after he learnt that four Nicaraguan women had drowned in the Rio Bravo in March.

"With this course, if something goes wrong, you can survive" and help others, Mr Venerio told a recent class.

Most of his students are single mothers, unemployed or working for wages that are not enough to put food on the table.

"I dream of working (in the United States), saving some money and coming back to start a business...because there is nothing to do here" in Nicaragua, said Ms Molina.

After stretching and running around the pool to warm up, the class learns swimming techniques, floating and diving.

"Swimming lessons have helped me lose a lot of fear," said Ms Martha Martinez, 42, who is preparing to "try my luck in the United States". She told AFP that people smugglers, known as coyotes, charge at least US$5,000 (S$6,829) per person - sometimes as much as US$14,000 - to get people into the US.

Would-be migrants raise the money with the help of relatives working abroad, by taking out bank loans or selling their homes.

From Nicaragua, they sneak off on buses to Guatemala, where they make contact with smugglers who advertise on social media.

Here the migrants are hidden in the backs of trucks and other vehicles and driven to Mexico.

The migrants face a barrage of risks, from maltreatment by their smugglers to assaults and even kidnappings by criminal gangs.

For 36-year-old Wilmer Sanchez, who is learning to swim with Mr Venerio, the "great obstacle" is the Rio Grande.

"Many have drowned," he told AFP, adding: "I am afraid."

Mr Sanchez, who is unemployed, said he was taking the risk due to the "difficult" economic situation in Nicaragua.

Fellow student Bertha Calderon, a 32-year old civil engineer and mother, said she is leaving because "everything is expensive and jobs are temporary".

She said: "I have unfortunately seen acquaintances and family members of acquaintances return home dead.

"It makes me sad, scared, there are so many mixed feelings but we are still going for a dream."

Elsewhere in Esteli, the family of Ms Neyli Rizo, a victim of the Rio Grande, received her body. The young woman set out last month to join her husband in the US, but never made it. He could not come home for the funeral, but sent white flowers.

Another family mourns the loss of 32-year-old Gabriela Espinoza, who left Nicaragua on Feb 25. She had paid coyotes more than US$6,000, her family said, with extra to cross the river by boat. But the smugglers abandoned her.

A fisherman pulled Ms Espinoza from the water and tried to resuscitate her, without success.

Now the family needs to raise more than US$5,000 to repatriate her body, and all for "a damned American dream", said Ms Espinoza's distraught mother Maria Perez, 71.