Protesters demand answers 11 years after Mexican students vanished

Eleven years after her son vanished, Delfina de la Cruz vented frustration at the unsolved disappearances of 43 Mexican students who were allegedly kidnapped by drug traffickers while authorities turned a blind eye.

The students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college — whose members have a history of political activism — had commandeered buses to travel to a demonstration in Mexico City when they went missing on September 26, 2014.

The case is considered one of the worst human rights atrocities in Mexico, where a spiral of drug-related violence has left more than 120,000 people unaccounted for.

In the rain, de la Cruz and the mothers of other victims led a massive protest march in Mexico City on Friday to mark the anniversary.

“We are back where we started,” she said. “I want to see my son, (know) what happened, where he is, if he is no longer there.”

So far the remains of only three of the missing students have been found and identified, while the whereabouts of the rest are unknown.

Investigators believe they were kidnapped by a drug cartel in collusion with corrupt police, although exactly what happened to them is unclear.

At Friday’s march, retired university professor Jesus Gumaro held a banner criticizing former president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, for not “clearing up the crime.”

“We had hoped that it would be solved, but nothing has happened,” said Gumaro, 66.

No one has been convicted despite the prosecution of dozens of people, including a former attorney general and several military personnel.

The missing students’ relatives have accused the army of withholding information.

On Thursday, protesters rammed a truck into the gates of a military barracks in Mexico City during a demonstration over the student disappearances.

No injuries were reported in the truck ramming and the barracks remained secure.

The students’ disappearance drew international condemnation and has become emblematic of a missing persons crisis in Mexico, with criminal violence claiming more than 450,000 lives since 2006.

The so-called “historical truth” — an official version of the case presented in 2015 under then-president Enrique Pena Nieto — was widely discredited, notably the theory that the remains were incinerated and thrown into a river in the southern state of Guerrero.

In 2022, a truth commission set up by Lopez Obrado’s government branded the case a “state crime” and said the military shared responsibility, either directly or through negligence.

The commission found that the army was aware of what was happening and had real-time information about the kidnapping and disappearance.

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