MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Thousands marched through the Mexican capital yesterday to demand the government find out what happened to dozens of missing students, who are feared to have been massacred by gang members and police.
The students from a teachers’ college went missing after they clashed with police in Iguala in the volatile, gang-ridden state of Guerrero on Sept. 26. A mass grave was found near the town over the weekend, full of charred human remains.
“Mexico has become worse than a death camp. I never thought I would live to see something so horrible,” said Mariela Lopez, a 56-year-old teacher from Mexico City as she walked under the hot afternoon sun down the capital’s central boulevard.
Protesters carried photos of missing students and signs that read “Fascist government, assassin of teachers” as they marched past the skyscrapers of the financial district to a historic plaza lined with colonial buildings.
In Guerrero’s capital of Chilpancingo, thousands more marched, blocking the highway that leads from Mexico City to the beach resort of Acapulco.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto vowed on Monday to identify those behind the massacre and make sure they face justice.
Guerrero’s attorney general, Inaky Blanco, said on Sunday that 28 bodies had been found at a mass grave site so far, adding it was “probable” that some of the missing 43 students are among the remains.
Their disappearance is only the latest incident of bloody violence that is becoming an increasing problem for Pena Nieto, who has sought to shift attention away from Mexico’s gang wars to the economic reforms he has pushed through Congress.
Some 22 local police have been arrested in connection with the violent incidents in Guerrero while the town’s mayor has fled and is being investigated for links to the crimes, as is the head of security for Iguala.
Blanco said the leader of a local gang known as the Guerreros Unidos conspired with security officials to carry out the killings.
