Townspeople Were Forced to Help Cartel on Night of Attacks on Mexican Students, Report Says Daniel Hernandez - VICE News
go to original December 18, 2014

Listen: Search for Missing Students in Mexico Turns Up Graves of Others (Carrie Kahn/NPR.org)

Residents of a community near the Mexican city where police attacked buses full of students said in a new report that they were obligated to help the Guerreros Unidos cartel carry out the mass disappearance of 43 teachers college students.

In an account published Tuesday in the Mexican daily El Universal, a dozen residents of the tiny town of Chilacachapa, about an hour away from the city of Iguala by a rustic highway, said the Guerreros Unidos cartel swept into their community on the night of September 26 and forced residents and local leaders onto vehicles.

The townspeople were posted at a cartel checkpoint connecting the town to Iguala, where municipal police had allegedly opened fire on students and bystanders that night, killing at least six people.

Residents told El Universal that cartel members spent hours riding through the streets of Chilacachapa that night, announcing that the Iguala police had come "under attack" by a rival criminal gang, Los Rojos, and by students "who were going to start a revolution."

The account echoes other unconfirmed versions of the chaotic events of September 26 and 27 that have suggested the Guerreros Unidos cartel believed the students from the Ayotzinapa Normal School were in league with their rivals Los Rojos as they entered Iguala with the intent of commandeering commercial coach buses.

Federal authorities have said there is no proof that the Ayotzinapa students had any links to Los Rojos.

Read the rest at VICE News

Photo: Rebecca Blackwell/AP

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