United Nations Urges Mexico Government to Find Students Missing in Guerrero State Agence France-Presse
go to original October 4, 2014

Parents and relatives of missing students leave the Interior Ministry building in Mexico City, after a meeting to press authorities to find the 43 students missing since a deadly police shooting last weekend. (Yuri Cortéz/AFP)

MEXICO CITY – The United Nations in Mexico has urged authorities to conduct an “effective” search for 43 students who vanished after a deadly police shooting last week as fears mounted about their fate.

The U.N. statement came as relatives of the aspiring teachers met with Interior Ministry officials to plead for a “serious” federal investigation to find the students in the gang-plagued southern state of Guerrero.

Witnesses say they saw municipal police officers haul away the students in patrol cars after shooting at buses that the youngsters had hijacked in the town of Iguala on September 26.

Three students were killed in the shooting. Three other people died in a gun attack on a soccer team bus on the outskirts of town. Authorities have detained 22 officers over the shootings.

“The extreme gravity of the incidents linked to the disappearance of so many people make it one of the most terrible events of recent times,” the U.N. in Mexico said.

“It compels us to make a humanitarian plea for those who have the missing to respect the life and integrity of the youngsters, to free them immediately, or give their location,” it said.

The statement also called on the government to coordinate and reinforce “all measures at its disposal to conduct an effective and diligent search.”

Read the full story at Tico Times

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