The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has expelled 18 Missionaries of Charity from the Central American country.

According to the newspaper El Confidencial, the nuns were taken by the General Directorate of Migration and Immigration and the police from the cities of Managua and Granada, where they had been serving the poor, to the border country of Costa Rica.

Of the 18 sisters, there are seven Indians, two Mexicans, two Filipinos, two Guatemalans, two Nicaraguans, one Spaniard, one Ecuadorian, and one Vietnamese.

The dissolution of the Missionaries of Charity and another 100 NGOs in Nicaragua was approved June 29 by the National Assembly on an “urgent” basis and without any debate.