Nearly 12,000 people on Thursday took to the streets of Guadalajara, calling for peace and justice for three film students who were brutally murdered in a crime that has shocked Mexico.
More than a month after their disappearance, authorities on Monday confirmed that 25-year-old Salomon Aceves Gastelum, 20-year-old Daniel Diaz and 20-year-old Marco Avalos were kidnapped, tortured and killed by drug cartel members. Afterward, their bodies were dissolved in acid.
“The absurd war on drugs is taking our classmates and we will not allow it anymore,” said Jesus Medina, a student leader from the University of Guadalajara.
Photo: AP
Many of the demonstrators also rejected the official version of events surrounding the students’ deaths.
“What they presented is based on indications — there is not strong scientific evidence. There are many doubts,” Oscar Juarez said.
Meanwhile, there was horror following the confession of a YouTube star and rapper — Christian Omar Palma Gutierrez, also known as “QBA” — that he dissolved the students’ bodies in acid.
Gutierrez said he received 3,000 pesos (US$159.36) per week to work for the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel, one of the most powerful in Mexico.
“People like that who no longer feel... They have forgotten what it is to be human. A total lack of values,” student Jose Eduardo Gomez told reporters.
Along with the students from five local universities, teachers and relatives also joined the march, shouting slogans and singing songs calling for peace.
More than 200,000 people have been murdered and more than 30,000 have disappeared since the government in late 2006 launched a controversial military offensive against organized crime, official figures showed, although how many of those incidents were linked to gang activity is unknown.
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