At Zompopera—a region at the headwater of Río Coco between Wiwilí and the city of Jinotega—the pickups were ambushed by the contras and Leyvraz' truck was hit by an anti-tank grenade launcher, which killed him and four companions.
[1] After Maurice Demierre [fr], who was murdered in February 1986, he became the second Swiss national killed in the international solidarity movement in Nicaragua.
[3] The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs expressed its regrets over the death of Leyvraz but did not officially protest to the United States.
A secretary of state even declared that he was cowed by the Americans into admitting that the murdered Swiss men were "left-wing people".
[4] As a political consequence of the deaths of Leyvraz and Demierre, Switzerland banned some regions of Nicaragua from receiving project support from the Swiss federal government.