SAN JOS, Jan 9, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Save the Children International said Wednesday that it was closing its operations in Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega has overseen a clampdown on nonprofit, rights and religious groups.

The British-based charity, which works in more than 100 countries, told AFP that it had requested "the voluntary closure" of its operations in the Central American nation, "primarily due to insufficient funding."

Save the Children said it had worked in Nicaragua for more than 50 years in areas including education and health.

"However, the current financial challenges prevented us from continuing our programming effectively and sustainably," it said. 

The closure was announced earlier Wednesday by Nicaraguan authorities, which said that the group was one of around a dozen that had requested their own dissolution.

More than 5,000 NGOs have ceased operating in Nicaragua since a 2018 crackdown on anti-government protests that Ortega branded an attempted US-backed coup.

More than 300 people were killed in the unrest.

Ortega, a 79-year-old ex-guerrilla who toppled a US-backed dictatorship in 1979 and then led the country for a decade, has shown increasingly authoritarian tendencies since returning to power in 2007.

He and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have gone after NGOs and the Catholic Church for what they see as their support for the protests.

The government had already shut down the activities of the Canadian arm of Save the Children in August 2024.

It also expelled three bishops, including the head of Nicaragua's bishops' conference, last year.

Ortega was initially praised for championing a moderate line when he regained power in the country of seven million people.

But in recent years he has seized control of all branches of government and cracked down on anyone he sees as a threat to his rule.

Some 450 politicians, businesspeople, journalists, intellectuals, human rights activists and religious figures have been expelled from Nicaragua and stripped of their nationality since February 2023, accused of treason.