Thousands demand justice 10 years after the disappearance of 43 students in southern Mexico

After a decade of unsuccessful efforts to find the 43 Ayotzinapa teacher students who disappeared in southern Mexico in 2014, thousands of people accompanied their families through the center of Mexico City to demand truth and justice not only for their children. but for the more than 115,000 missing people in the country.

“You are not alone, you are not alone,” the protesters shouted on Thursday night to the parents of the students, to whom they threw flower petals under incessant rain and with the presidential headquarters behind them. On his chest, photos of his children.

“Ten years that have not been easy at all, that have been of lies on the part of governments, but here we continue, we cannot stop, we are missing a son for whom we are looking for,” said Hilda Legideño, mother of one of the disappeared.

The tenth anniversary of the attack on the students of the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School came four days after the end of the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a president in whom the families trusted, but who leaves them mired in frustration, as was left in clear when some protesters threw fireworks towards the protective wall of the National Palace.

López Obrador will go down in history “as an accomplice of those people who disappeared our children and ours,” said Legideño.

Like a president who betrayed not only families but “a people thirsty for justice and to know the truth,” said another of the fathers, Mario González.

As night fell and despite the fact that the authorities had partially blocked access to the capital’s central square with concrete blocks, the protesters reached the outskirts of the National Palace amid shouts of “Ayotzi we are all” or “It was the State.” . In their wake they left graffiti demanding justice, as well as some damage.

“It catches our attention that we still have people who support us,” said Margarito Guerrero, father of another of the missing students. “The first time we passed through here, who would have thought that I would spend all this time and here again, without answers?” he added, while walking in the rain, covered only by his straw hat.

Two governments have passed, there are dozens of detainees – among them a former attorney general – and there have been hundreds of searches, but Mexico still does not know the fate of the young people attacked by police in the town of Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014 because the investigation was plagued by irregularities and manipulations to hide the truth, according to the current federal prosecutor’s office. The authorities consider that the young people were murdered but only the remains of three of them have been located.

This government moved forward by determining that it was a “state crime” and pointed to heroin trafficking as a possible trigger for the attack. He also confirmed that a local cartel acted in collusion with security forces and local, state and federal authorities, including the military.

But López Obrador distanced himself from some of those advances on Wednesday. He minimized the cases of torture perpetrated by the previous government and that caused many suspects to be released for these abuses, he distanced himself from the motive of heroin trafficking and insisted that the accusations that link the Army are due to “political interests”, although there are 16 soldiers prosecuted.

“It gave us a lot of hope,” said Joaquina García, mother of another of the disappeared, at an event at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “But it seems that he protects the military a lot and is not worth it.” “Here we are shouting to see if the hearts of the people who took our children are moved.”

The UN regretted on Thursday the “unsatisfactory results” by the authorities. The IACHR, which sent experts to investigate for eight years, expressed its concern about the “paralysis” of the case and denounced a persistent “pact of silence that prevents the identification of the perpetrators of the disappearance and their concealers.”

Activists, academics and around thirty civil organizations from different Latin American countries—from Chile and Argentina to Guatemala, including Brazil and Colombia—demanded more actions from the future president, Claudia Sheinbaum.

The Mexican NGO Fundar – which accompanies the families – recalled that the case shows “the unpunished operation of the disappearance device… that has remained in force in Mexico for decades” and the “institutional abandonment” suffered by its victims.

The president admitted on Thursday that “things got complicated, they are tangled” and that he could not find the whereabouts of the students. “Let it be very clear to you…there is no impunity for anyone, we did everything to find the young people,” he said in a last attempt to convince the families of his efforts.

The taste is bitter but the families are not willing to forget.

“Let’s see what’s next” with the new president, added Margarito Guerrero. “We are going to squeeze her if she doesn’t respond.”

Joaquina García agreed. “This fight is not over.”

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