Classmates of Missing Mexico Students Abandon #Ayotzinapa Studies Renee Lewis and Debora Poo Soto - Al Jazeera
go to original December 12, 2014

A student waits inside the Ayotzinapa school minutes before the departure of a caravan of students and relatives of the missing students heading for different parts of the country, in Tixtla, Guerrero State, Mexico. (Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images)

Since 43 students at a teachers college in rural Ayotzinapa, Mexico, were disappeared in September, dozens of remaining members of their first-year class have abandoned their studies.

Within days of the students’ kidnapping and suspected massacre by a drug gang, nearly everyone in the first-year class — where the majority of the 43 disappeared students were enrolled — left the school, students told Al Jazeera.

“The freshman class was down to about five students, but now as we better understand the situation and have talked to the families, some have started returning, one by one,” said Uriel Alonso Solís, a 19-year-old second-year student at Ayotzinapa, adding that about 25 freshman students are currently attending classes.

But at least 75 students have discontinued their studies, according to members of the school’s student committee.

Peter David García López, a third-year student at the college and speaker of the student committee, confirmed the dropout numbers among first-year students. He said many of the students who opted out were following the wishes of their families.

Read the rest at Al Jazeera

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