SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- In a tree-shaded downtown plaza, in Central America's most peaceful nation, few could have predicted the angry mob.
Hundreds of men dressed in red shirts and jerseys marched into La Merced park carrying knives, baseball bats and glass bottles stuffed with gasoline-soaked rags.
Apparently motivated by false and inflammatory online messages, they had come to confront Nicaraguans who had fled their country and turned the park into a base camp, a place to receive free meals and coffee from local churches and charities.
"Get out Nicas!" the crowd chanted, according to videos posted online later. Fights broke out. More than 40 people were arrested, government officials said.
The confrontation that unfolded on that Saturday afternoon last month has shaken a country known as a relative oasis of peace in a tumultuous region where mass migration and gang warfare are common. The arrival of thousands of Nicaraguans in recent months -- fleeing President Daniel Ortega's violent crackdown on protesters -- has laid bare undercurrents of xenophobia in Costa Rica and prompted the first major crisis for President Carlos Alvarado, who had just completed 100 days in office.
His administration is investigating whether Ortega's government, or its supporters on either side of the border, were involved in fanning the anti-immigrant flames.
"We will protect our country in every way, but these acts are not welcome, nor will they be tolerated in any way," Costa Rican Foreign Minister Epsy Campbell said. "We cannot permit even the smallest space to feed a xenophobic attitude."
Since April, Ortega's security forces and armed militias in Nicaragua have attacked protesters in street battles and house-to-house raids. The government crackdown has left more than 350 people dead and has prompted thousands to flee south to Costa Rica.
"The level of persecution is such that many of those who have participated in the protests, defended the rights of the protesters, or simply expressed dissenting opinion, have been forced to hide, have left Nicaragua or are trying to do so," said a report released last week by the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.
The exact numbers of those who have fled into Costa Rica since the unrest began is unknown because many crossed the border illegally and have not identified themselves to authorities. So far this year, more than 24,400 Nicaraguans have expressed their intention to apply for asylum in Costa Rica, compared with 58 asylum applications from January to August 2017.
But a significant portion of these applicants already lived in Costa Rica and decided to apply for asylum given the upheaval in Nicaragua, immigration officials said. As neighbors with intertwined histories, roughly a half-million Nicaraguans lived in Costa Rica when the conflict in Nicaragua began.
At migration agency offices in the capital, hundreds of Nicaraguans lined the sidewalk earlier this summer, some sleeping in tents for days, waiting to apply for asylum. They received appointments to come back early next year.
Some Nicaraguans spend days loitering in parks and plazas, wearing donated clothes, without homes or work permits. Others bunk where they can, with friends and relatives, in shelters or dingy motels.
Scarleth Osorno, 21, and her husband, Cristhian Rosales, 19, spent their first nights as refugees in San Jose sleeping on the ground under a tree in La Merced park with their 8-month-old daughter.
The couple had given coffee and water to protesters manning barricades in their hometown of Diriamba, the site of one of the deadliest clashes with Nicaraguan paramilitaries. They were later identified as dissidents by government loyalists in their neighborhood, and masked gunmen showed up at their home.
"They were armed to the teeth," said Rosales, a welder. "When they knocked on the door I ran out the back."
The family escaped through a ravine, caught a bus for the border and arrived in San Jose in late July. They were at La Merced Park on Aug. 18 when the redshirted mob descended, hurling insults, calling them cowards, demanding that they get out of Costa Rica.
Public Security Minister Michael Soto Rojas said that the presumption is that an "external or internal influence tried to maximize" the protest. Among Nicaraguan refugees, there is widespread belief that Ortega has allies in Costa Rica, surveilling protest leaders who have fled or fomenting disruptions.
Soto said that there is no "conclusive evidence" that Ortega's government helped organize the protest or has spies on the ground pursuing protesters, "but there's an expectation that it could occur or is occurring."
Representatives from Nicaragua's government did not respond to requests for comment.
Information for this article was contributed by Ismael Lopez Ocampo of The Washington Post.
A Section on 09/03/2018