The mass graves near Iguala are not unique in Mexico. And the whereabouts of 43 male students who disappeared in the south-west state of Guerrero three weeks ago remains another mystery in a country where the missing often do not return.
It is still unclear why or under whose orders the students were abducted, but the case has heaped pressure on the government not only to solve the crime but also address the wider problem of forced disappearances that affects great swathes of Mexico.
The students were ambushed outside the town of Iguala on 26 September. The attacks left six civilians dead, at least 25 injured and 43 students missing. Many of them were last seen being driven away in a police car. The authorities have now arrested 48 suspects, including 40 police officers and several alleged members of local drug gang Guerreros Unidos (Warriors United), a splinter group of the infamous Beltran Leyva cartel. On Friday, officials said they had captured the group’s leader, Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado, along with a collaborator, weapons and vehicles.
The series of mass graves was discovered near Iguala. But the attorney general, Jesus Murillo Karam, announced last week that the 28 charred bodies found in the first set of graves were not those of the missing students. “Whether these corpses are those of the students or not, the situation is grave,” Mexican journalist Sanjuana Martinez told The Independent on Sunday. “If they aren’t the students’ bodies it’s just as bad, if not worse, because before there were 43 people missing in the state and now there are another 28 cases to be resolved.”
Click here to read this feature in full at The Independent on Sunday.
Mexican parents wait for news of 43 missing students following mass graves discovery
Mario Cesar Gonzalez found out that his son was in danger when he received a midnight phone call from one of his classmates. They had been attacked in the state of Guerrero, in the south-west of Mexico. Mr Gonzalez immediately made the 11-hour journey to the town of Iguala, where the incident had occurred.
“I arrived that morning. It was a really ugly situation and I felt shattered. Three students had been killed and several others were injured, some of them in a very grave condition,” he told The Independent on Sunday.
In total, six civilians died and at least 25 were wounded. One student was found with the skin stripped from his face and his eyes gouged out. Another 43 remain unaccounted for, including Mr Gonzalez’s 22-year-old son, Cesar Manuel, who was last seen being bundled into a police car.
The entire country, if not the world, watched with mounting horror and dread last week as investigators uncovered mass graves, one filled with 28 charred remains. Four more mass graves containing burned bodies were found on Thursday…
Click here to read this future in full at The Independent.
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