Thousands of protesters blocked the highway to Acapulco in southern Mexico on Thursday to press authorities to find 43 students missing since a deadly police shooting last weekend.
The demonstration was part of commemorations of a 1968 massacre of students by the army in Mexico City, but the protesters focused on the fate of the disappeared in violence-plagued Guerrero state.
Parents of the missing led the march in the state capital, Chilpancingo, holding signs that read: “They were taken alive, we want them back,” as students, teachers and others followed.
Photo: Reuters
The students, from a teacher training college near Chilpancingo, had gone to the town of Iguala about 100 kilometers to the north on Friday last week to raise funds when they were shot at by municipal police after they reportedly hijacked buses to return home.
Three students were killed and witnesses said that they saw dozens taken away in police cars.
Authorities held 22 officers over the shooting and another attack that killed three other people later that night on the outskirts of Iguala.
A gang is thought to have participated in the second shooting, while the officers are suspected of having links to criminals in the region, raising fears that a gang has the students.
“We are fed up with crime and corruption in this state,” said Manuel Martinez, 32, whose 18-year-old nephew is among the missing.
Relatives of the missing, backed by scores of troops and state police, scoured areas near Iguala this week, handing out fliers with pictures of their loved ones.
However, the parents said that they are unhappy with how authorities are handling the case, saying that no proper investigations are being conducted for the search.
“The search was a show,” said Mariano Flores Vazquez, 35, who searched for his 22-year-old nephew.
Manuel Olivares, coordinator of the Guerrerense Network of Human Rights Organizations, told reporters that parents are debating how to proceed with the search.
“The parents did not like how it took place, because there is no seriousness, there is no investigation,” he said.
After blocking the highway with buses for several hours, the protesters freed the road after Mexican federal officials agreed to meet with parents yesterday. Officials say they hope that the 43 students will turn up alive, like a dozen others who reappeared after apparently going into hiding.
The parents are holding out hope, but some fear for the worst in a nation where an estimated 80,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006. Another estimated 22,000 people are missing.
As the protesters marched, Guerrero Governor Angel Aguirre sent 1,600 state workers to help the search in Iguala.
“We will go house-to-house, under orders of Governor Angel Aguirre, until we find these youngsters,” state Secretary of Social Development Beatriz Mojica Morga said.
The Iguala case emerged as the army faced a scandal after eight soldiers were detained by the military over the killing of 22 drug suspects.
Authorities originally said the suspects died in a shootout, but a witness said that the soldiers executed 21 people, including her 15-year-old daughter, after a shootout.
The army held eight soldiers over the killings in Tlatlaya, a town south of Mexico City. Civilian prosecutors plan to charge three of them with homicide.
An estimated 25,000 people marched in Mexico City to mark the 46th anniversary of the Tlatelolco Square Massacre, in which soldiers killed dozens of student protesters 10 days before the capital hosted the 1968 Olympic Games.
Protesters in the capital also denounced the Iguala and Tlatlaya cases, saying that — as with Tlatelolco — they took place under the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
“The same story repeats itself. It does not surprise anybody that it is the same PRI. The same who killed dozens of students in cold blood in Tlatelolco is the same that shows indifference over the disappearance of the students in Guerrero,” 41-year-old public worker Rosa Icela said.
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