Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the first female president of Nicaragua, died early Saturday morning in Costa Rica at the age of 95, her family announced in a statement. Chamorro, an unlikely leader whose rise to power was fueled by her husband’s murder,

Before the assassination of her husband, the editor of the only independent newspaper in Nicaragua, Violeta Chamorro was scarcely involved in politics. But as the country descended into revolution and civil war,

The first woman to lead a Central American country, she served in the 1990s after the nation had been shaken by political strife.