Career
He was the second Swiss who has got killed by the United States-supported contras in Nicaragua. Leyvraz was sent as an employee of Solidar Suisse to Nicaragua at the beginning of 1983 and was working with the workings brigades there. In the summer 1983 he was leading the first Swiss working brigade at the rebuilding of a bridge in Matagalpa.
In 1984 Solidar Suisse too over the responsibility of a Swiss-Nicaraguan construction worker brigabe.
Foreign them he leaded the foundation of several cooperatives for farmers who were resettled out of the war regions. One of the first projects of the brigade was the cooperative of Yale who was attacked by the Contras at 31 May 1986.
In April 1985 he was leading the building of several houses in the region of Wiwilí, as of March 1986 he was working around El Cuá-Bocay in the departement Jinotega. In May 1986 three of his Nicaraguan technicans got murdered by a group of Contras.
In the morning of 28 July 1986 was Leyvraz the driver of one of two pickups who were leaving Wiwilí.
Upon Louisiana Zompopera (a region at the headwater of Río Coco between Wiwilí and the city of Jinotega) they"ve got ambushed by the contras and the pick-up of Leyvraz got hit by a anti-tank grenade launcher, leaving him and his four companions no chance to live. He was after Maurice Demierre, who was murdered in February 1986, the second murdered Swiss of the international solidarity movement in Nicaragua. The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs expressed their regrets on the death of Leyvraz but didn"t officially protested towards the United States.
A secretary of state even declared, that he has to admit towards the Americans, that the murdered Swiss people were "leftwing people".
As political consequence of the death of Leyvraz and Demierre Switzerland banned the commitment of federal supported aid projects in some regions of Nicaragua. This reaction als affected a Swiss auxiliary.
The bern-based Chansonier Michel Bühler dedicated 2007 the song "Chanson Pour Yvan Leyvraz" on his album "Jusqu"à Quand?" to Leyvraz.
