(Mexico City) Several dozen people, who were demonstrating on Wednesday against the kidnapping and disappearance in 2014 of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Normal School, broke down one of the doors of the presidential palace in Mexico City, according to images from the Milenio channel .
In these images, we see the demonstrators use a van to break down the door before some of them, with their faces masked, enter the palace.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador denounced a “provocation” as the electoral campaign began in Mexico last Friday to appoint his successor on June 2.
“It’s a movement against us,” he said during his usual press conference, when asked by journalists about what was happening outside the national palace.
“They would like us to respond violently. We are not going to do it because we are not oppressors,” he continued. “We will repair the door and there is no problem,” he assured.
The ruling party’s candidate Claudia Sheinbaum is the big favorite in the presidential election, driven by the popularity of the outgoing president, who cannot run again after a single mandate of six years according to the Constitution.
“Political objectives”
Demonstrators had already tried to attack the doors of the National Palace, seat of the presidency since 2018. This is the first time in years that they have achieved their goal.
Relatives of the 43 disappeared, accompanied by their lawyers, activists and students demonstrate regularly in the center of Mexico City, especially as the anniversary of the tragedy approaches.
A camp in their memory is set up on the main artery in the center of the capital, opposite the national palace.
The president assured that the demonstrators would be listened to by a member of the Ministry of the Interior. He considered that the lawyers and activists who accompanied the parents were motivated by “political objectives”.
The Ayotzinapa students disappeared on the night of September 27, 2014 after going to Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero, where they were preparing to board several buses to go to the capital Mexico and participate in a demonstration.
According to official versions, they were kidnapped by the police, in collusion with criminals, and were delivered to the Guerreros Unidos cartel which allegedly murdered them.
The affair had traumatized the country.
President Lopez Obrador has pledged to thoroughly review the investigations and find the missing young people.