may. 4, 2016
Por Svante Persson
When you first see Bilwi from the air before landing on its tiny grass airstrip, your first thought is that you will be landing in the middle of a vast swamp. There are very few buildings, scattered cattle, and almost no people. It definitely doesn’t look like an urban area. But Bilwi is the capital of Nicaragua’s North Atlantic Autonomous region on the Caribbean Coast (RAACN). The 60,000-strong population of the RAACN is predominantly indigenous and Afro-descendant, and despite its constitutional autonomy, the RAACN is extremely isolated, both geographically and politically, and up to 75% of its population lives in poverty or extreme poverty.