The case of 43 Mexican students missing since an alleged attack by gang-linked police took another grim turn on Thursday with the discovery of new mass graves where suspects said some were buried.
Four new suspects took investigators to the site of the four pits, 200km south of Mexico City, but the number of bodies remains unknown, said Mexican federal Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam.
“They say there are remains of students,” Murillo Karam said, adding that some of the bodies appeared burned.
The discovery has put another dent on hopes of finding the students alive almost two weeks after they were pursued by Iguala police officers accused of working in tandem with the Guerreros Unidos gang.
The pits are “relatively” close to the location of another mass grave found last weekend in the southern state of Guerrero that contained at least 28 unidentified bodies, the attorney general said.
Two alleged hitmen confessed to executing 17 of the students and dumping them in the mass grave found on Saturday last week, authorities have said.
They added that it would take at least two weeks to identify the bodies through DNA analysis.
The case has outraged Mexicans, who held protests across the nations Wednesday to demand the return of the students, in a nation that has lost tens of thousands of people to drug violence since 2006.
Authorities say corrupt officers shot at buses the students had “seized” to return home on Sept. 26, sparking a night of violence that left six people dead, 25 wounded and 43 missing.
Surveillance cameras showed several students being taken away in patrol cars.
Murillo Karam said there are several lines of investigation into the motive, but that the city’s mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, his wife and the public security director are wanted for questioning.
The trio have apparently gone into hiding.
The mayor’s wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa, is the sister of two former members of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, which founded the Guerreros Unidos.
Murillo Karam did not say why the mayor and his entourage were being sought.
However, Mexican media outlets, citing an intelligence services report, say Abarca’s wife asked police to confront the students because she feared that they would interrupt a speech she was giving that night.
The mayor then reportedly told the police chief to teach a lesson to the students, who are from a teacher training college known for fomenting radical political movements.
The students say they were in Iguala to raise funds, though they had commandeered the buses to return home, a common practice among the radical aspiring teachers, according to authorities.
IMMUNITY REMOVED
Guerrero chief prosecutor Inaky Blanco said authorities did not arrest Abarca before he disappeared last week because he had immunity as mayor, which was only revoked by local legislators on Thursday.
Abarca requested a 30-day leave of absence before vanishing a few days after the attacks.
Blanco said Abarca faced state charges of negligence for preferring to stay at a party and go to bed instead of stopping the violence.
The mayor “left the victims at the mercy of public security members,” Blanco said.
OFFICERS DETAINED
Four more municipal police officers have been arrested on homicide charges in the case, in addition to 22 who were detained last week.
Officials also arrested four alleged members of the Guerreros Unidos gang, which prosecutors say worked hand-in-hand with police during the assault.
Murillo Karam did not say who the four new suspects were, but their arrest brings the total of detainees to 34.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in