A second independent forensic investigation on Tuesday rejected the Mexican government’s conclusion that 43 students who went missing in 2014 were incinerated at a garbage dump.
The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team said there was “no consistency between the physical evidence” and the testimony of drug gang suspects who claimed that the students were killed and burned at the site.
While charred bone remains of at least 19 people were found at the dump in Cocula in the southern state of Guerrero, they “clearly do not belong” to the trainee teachers, said Miguel Nieva, a member of the Argentine team.
Photo: Reuters
Nieva showed photos and studies of plants demonstrating that there was “not any sign of a recent fire in the vegetation” at the dump in Cocula.
Nieva said there were several blazes at the landfill over the years since 2010, but “no fire occurred on the night of” Sept. 26 to 27, 2014, when the students vanished after they were detained by police in the nearby town of Iguala.
Former attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam declared last year that the “historic truth” was that the students were delivered to a drug cartel, which killed them, incinerated their bodies at the dump and tossed the remains in a river.
One of the students was identified among the remains found in bags in the river. Authorities also found a possible DNA match for a second student.
However, the Argentines, who have participated in the investigations at the request of the students’ families, expressed doubts about the origin of the remains.
The group said it was not present when the bags were found, so they cannot be sure of the remains’ origins.
The bone that allowed an Austrian lab to identify the student, Alexander Mora, was “unusual of its size compared to the other fragments in the same bag” and had minimal exposure to fire, Argentine team member Mercedes Doretti said.
Independent investigators from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights rejected the official conclusions in September last year, saying a fire expert found no scientific evidence of a massive funeral pyre at the dump.
Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez has vowed to conduct a new forensic investigation with international experts while looking at other lines of investigation into the students’ possible final destination.
Her office said that it had received the Argentine team’s report and that it would be reviewed.
The statement said the case was not closed and that authorities are finalizing the team to conduct a new analysis of the fire claims in the tragedy.
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