9 Years Later, Families of 43 Missing Mexican Students March to Demand Answers in Emblematic Case Daniel Shailer - The Independent
go to original September 27, 2023

Counting upwards in chant, bereaved families marched through Mexico City in remembrance of 43 students abducted by the government nine years ago. (Associated Press)

Chanting from one to 43, relatives of students abducted nine years ago counted out the number of the missing youths as they marched through Mexico City to demand answers to one of Mexico's most infamous human rights cases.

With President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's term ending next year, family members face not only the prospect of a ninth year of not knowing what happened to their sons but fears that the next administration will start the error-plagued investigation over from scratch yet again.

In 2014, a group of students were attacked by municipal police in the southern city of Iguala, Guerrero, who handed them over to a local drug gang that apparently killed them and burned their bodies. Since the Sept. 26 attack, only three of their remains have been identified.

After an initial coverup, last year a government truth commission concluded that local, state and federal authorities colluded with the gang to murder the students in what it called a “state crime.”

Ulises Gutierrez Solano joined the march in honor of his brother, Aldo, a student who survived the initial kidnapping but was left in a “vegetative state” since 2014 after police shot him in the head while the others students were being abducted.

“This is an atrocity to humanity, to society,” said Solano. “How could they do so much harm to so many people?”

López Obrador had pledged to solve the case and recent years have seen a painstakingly slow release of documents from the abduction, as well as a slew of arrests. But activists and human rights organizations say the government has not done enough to atone for the murders, investigate exactly what happened, and punish the culprits.

Tensions rose just hours before the march, when the families and their lawyers rejected a series of documents the Mexican government offered to make public, claiming the specific military files they requested months ago were not included. The army said it didn't have those files.

Read the rest at The Independent

Related: Keeping the Secrets: U.S. Silence about Ayotzinapa (National Security Archive)

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