(Mexico City) Around 5,000 people took to the streets of Mexico City on Tuesday to demand justice, nine years after the disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guerrero, a case that shocked the country.
Visibly tired and silent, the parents of the young people kidnapped in the town of Iguala led the march.
“The army does not take care of us, it eliminates us”, could we read on one of the posters carried by the demonstrators, in reference to the alleged involvement of the army in this affair.
” This is not an isolated case. The military are very dangerous, so much so that we still don’t know where the 43 are, and it’s certain that they know,” Luis Rodríguez, 25, told AFP.
These students from the Ayotzinapa Normal School disappeared on the night of September 27, 2014 after going to Iguala, where they were preparing to board several buses to go to Mexico City and participate in a demonstration.
According to official versions, they were detained by the police, in collusion with criminals, and would have been delivered to the Guerreros Unidos cartel which would have murdered them.
The families rejected the investigation by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), which notably affirmed that the young people had been confused with members of another cartel.
President López Obrador subsequently set up a commission to shed light on this matter.
This group of investigators, formed after an agreement between the government and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, claims that the Mexican army permitted the attack and murder of the students, covered it up and did not provide transparent information on the facts.
On July 26, the commission ended investigations it began in 2015, saying the military had refused to hand over sensitive information, making it “impossible” to continue its work.
Relatives of the victims accuse the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) of not having transmitted all the information it has on the case.
President López Obrador defended the actions of his government, which will end in 2024, recalling that two generals, 20 other members of the army, including officers and soldiers, a former attorney general and some 120 others are imprisoned in connection with this matter.