Nicaraguan Refugees Flee to Costa Rica : Country’s Tradition of Humanitarian Aid Is Being Put to Test

Nicaraguan refugees are flooding into Costa Rica at the highest rate since the Sandinistas took power in Managua six years ago, officials here report.

In the last two months, more than 2,300 Nicaraguans have crossed the border and moved into already teeming refugee camps. The camps received 2,400 Nicaraguans during the last nine months of 1983, 1,750 in all of 1984 and 650 in January and February of this year.

The numbers rose sharply to 1,120 in March and 1,250 in April because of intensified action by the Sandinista army against anti-Marxist rebels, known as contras, officials said. They said that while most of the refugees are peasants fleeing the economic hardships and dangers of warfare, many are youths fleeing the Nicaraguan military draft.

Nicaraguan exiles say that Sandinista repression is the main reason the refugees leave their homeland.

Most refugees must hike for 20 days or more through rough mountains and jungle to reach the Costa Rican frontier from populated areas of Nicaragua.

“There are people who come out barely dragging themselves along,” said Miguel Carmona, president of the Costa Rican Red Cross. At the border, the refugees are met by Red Cross workers, given medical attention and taken to U.N.-sponsored camps.

Such registered refugees, however, are but the tip of the migratory iceberg. More than 100,000 Nicaraguans are believed to have entered Costa Rica undetected, living as unregistered aliens and putting a strain on the small country’s social services.

“The refugee has become a permanent emergency in my country,” Carmona said in an interview.

Migrants Crowd Country

President Luis Alberto Monge said in his state of the nation address last week that about 150,000 undocumented Central Americans have crowded into this country of 2.6 million people. Other officials say that the overwhelming majority of these undocumented refugees are Nicaraguans.

“A migratory bombshell of Central Americans, pushed out of their countries by war, has put Costa Rica’s humanitarian tradition to the test,” Monge said.

Thousands of displaced persons from Nicaragua and El Salvador also have fled into Honduras, the poorest country in Central America. However, Costa Rica--a peaceful, democratic and relatively prosperous sanctuary in an isthmus dominated by warfare, turmoil and poverty--has special attractions for the “foot people.”

Costa Rican social programs include free food for the indigents and free medical care for everyone. Unregistered aliens are not excluded.

As a result, “the whole Costa Rican welfare state is overburdened by the Nicaraguans,” said Armando Vargas, the Costa Rican minister of information. “It is a humanitarian duty to take care of them, but it is a duty that is beyond the economic possibilities of Costa Rica.”

Vargas said the government hopes that foreign church and civic organizations will come to the rescue.