MANAGUA, Nicaragua — A life on the run was not one any of these Nicaraguans ever intended.

But many people in this desperately poor Central American nation now live in a bleak new reality. They have exchanged their routine lives as lawyers, engineering majors, radio broadcasters and merchants for one of ever-changing safe houses, encrypted messaging apps and pseudonyms.

Eight months after a spontaneous popular uprising left 322 people dead and 565 others in jail, Nicaraguans from cities across the country have gone underground.

They are hiding from an increasingly authoritarian state that is methodically tracking down those who participated in the large-scale and often violent protests against the government of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.