20 Months Later - International Support for Mexico's 43 Disappeared Students Daniella Burgi-Palomino - The World Post
go to original May 25, 2016

A demonstrator in Mexico holds up his hand with the number 43, in reference to the missing students. (Henry Romero/Reuters)

The U.S congressional briefing to be held today with the Group of Experts tasked with accompanying the case of the 43 disappeared Mexican students could not come at a more crucial time.

The end of this week marks twenty months since the disappearance of the students. On the night of Sept. 26th, 2014, students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers’ college left their homes in the state of Guerrero to commandeer buses to travel to Mexico City to commemorate, ironically, the 1968 student massacre. They were instead the victims of what we now know were a series of coordinated attacks between organized crime, police forces, and military soldiers resulting in six deaths, the injuries of an estimated forty individuals, and the enforced disappearance of 43 students.

Yet, nearly two years after the initial attacks, the case remains far from closed.

The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), operating under an agreement by the Mexican government and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) presented the findings from their second and final report on the Ayotzinapa case in Mexico City on April 24th to an audience of civil society organizations, the general public, and the families of the disappeared students. The Mexican government officials who were invited noticeably never showed up. The experts’ report presentation was the bitter end to the frustrating year accompanying the case in Mexico; an ending they didn’t ask for but were forced to accept when the Mexican government refused to extend their mandate.

Though their mandate has formally expired, the experts, with support from U.S. and Mexican civil society, will now present their grim findings to U.S. policymakers to expose what has gone wrong in the official investigation with the international community.

Read the rest at The Hufffington Post

Related: Congressional Briefing on Disappeared Mexican Students Peers into Mexican Government Investigation (OC Breeze)

Related: Student Who Escaped the Night 43 Classmates Disappeared in Mexico Seeks Asylum in the US (VICE News)

Related: The Case of Mexico's 43 Disappeared Students: The Group of Experts Report (Human Rights Commission)

Related: Bones to be Analysed in Search of 43 Missing Mexican Students (ENCA)

Related: Inter-American Human Rights Commission Faces Unacceptable Budget Crisis (Mexico Voices)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!