Mr. Montiel said he had bought the land from a local indigenous leader. He acknowledged that the law prohibited such deals, but insisted that many of the buyers were peasants who did not know any better and said it was unfair for the farmers to lose their investments.

The Nicaraguan government has denounced a few corrupt indigenous leaders who sold land and arrested more than a dozen notary public agents who signed off on dubious deals. But the farmers and the Miskitos say the government has not done enough to settle the issue.

Although some farmers have been forced out, hundreds of them remain, said Lottie Cunningham, a Miskito human rights lawyer.

“A lot of people don’t understand. In the city, if you have money, you go buy a pound of chicken. These people depend on the forest and fishing,” Ms. Cunningham said, noting that many of the villages are hours away from any town and reachable only by boat. “All these land sales were illegal. The attorney general, the prosecutors, they offer no answers for the murdered or the injured.”

So far, her group has counted 30 killings of Miskitos.

Publicly, President Daniel Ortega has sided with the Miskitos, insisting that the law is clear: Indigenous lands cannot be sold.

“It’s fraud! You cannot sell the land!” Mr. Ortega said in a speech last year. “They arm themselves there however they can with homemade weapons, maybe some rifles left over from the war, to remove them. Some of the communities have organized to evict the settlers.”