Hello, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC.

Today we're examining the nightmare of violence that's plaguing Nicaragua.

Two weeks ago, paramilitary people at the service of the government,

open fire to church for 15 hours, live ammunition, snipers, AK-47.

But why is Nicaragua in such turmoil? Who's involved? How's the economy coping? And where will it end?

That's today's Business Daily from the BBC.

Hey, hey! Look at me! Daily from the BBC. What is happening in Nicaragua these days?

That's the sound of tear gas smoke bombs and live rounds being fired at a protest in Nicaragua's capital back in April this year. Confrontations like this one between anti-government

protesters and the security forces of President Daniel Ortega have become commonplace over the last

four months. Three hundred people or more have died.

Overwhelmingly, victims of gunshot wounds fired by masked pro-government paramilitaries.

Manuel Orozco, a senior fellow at the think tank, Inter-American Dialogue,

told me the violence had fled after low-level protests were met with brute force by the government earlier this year.

Growing intolerance started basically right after the last election of Daniel Ortega in November 2016.

From that point on, the population expressed a lot of disappointment and discontent over the way Ortega got elected.

He delegitimated a political party, basically, won with 70% of the vote.

And the threats of the government to sanction and censor the media, particularly social media, followed then by discontent over changes in the

social security support to the elderly in April 19. And now it's a nationwide protest.

Yes, I mean, it's interesting that changes to social security for pensioners.

It's not normally something that triggers an anti-establishment wave, but that is what we have seen.

What has the government's response been to these growing protests since February and March?

The response of the government has been increasingly negative

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