A one-year-old boy was among at least seven dead in Nicaragua amid a fresh wave of violence and repression by the government of the president, Daniel Ortega.

The attacks began on Friday evening, hours after an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report said the Nicaraguan government had violated human rights during protests that started in mid-April and have claimed more than 215 lives.

The national police said the one-year-old boy was struck on Saturday by a bullet fired by a delinquent trying to prevent police from clearing road barricades in the capital, Managua. The boy’s mother told a local TV station the police shot her son. Nearby, two men were shot dead.

Also early on Saturday, the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua came under siege. Two students were killed, more than a dozen were wounded and at least six were missing, according to Catholic priest Raul Zamora, who helped secure a ceasefire. Students took over the state university in Managua nearly two months ago.

Elsewhere, in Masaya, where bishops negotiated a truce just days earlier, the Red Cross said two people have been killed.

Opposition and civic groups called off a march planned for Saturday afternoon to honour those killed in recent protests. The organisers said they wanted to avoid further bloodshed. Saturday is also Father’s Day in Nicaragua.

Protesters are calling for Ortega’s ouster and opposition groups want presidential elections to be brought forward by two years, to 2019. Nicaragua has no term limits. Ortega has yet to respond to the demand for early elections.

The Catholic church is mediating talks between opposition groups and the government, and Nicaraguan bishops have called for discussions to resume on Monday.

Pablo Abrão, the executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said via Twitter on Saturday a technical team from the commission will meet on Monday with state authorities, members of civil society and religious leaders.

Alvaro Leiva, the director of the Nicaraguan Pro-Human Rights Association, warned Nicaraguans to be on high alert for further violence, calculating that more than 215 people have died since the unrest began in April.

“There’s a savage repression. There are executions, deaths, persecutions, kidnappings and a high risk of further bloodshed,” Leiva said.