Parents of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students protest at the Eighth Naval Region base in Acapulco

Photo by Tlachinollan Human Rights Center.

On June 6, the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center tweeted:

“Mothers and fathers of the 43 students who disappeared on September 26, 2014, march in Chilpancingo. The demand is the presentation alive of the 43 and 100 thousand more in Mexico. Thus, it was also said that the Army and the Navy should be investigated for the case.”

Then on June 7, Tlachinollan tweeted:

“Mothers and fathers of the 43 disappeared students, social organizations and students march in the coastal Miguel Alemán, Acapulco. The Army and the Navy have to provide the information they have so that the events that occurred in 2014 can be clarified. Stay tuned…”

They then tweeted:

“Mothers and fathers of the 43 disappeared students enter the Secretary of the Navy in Acapulco. They demand that they provide the files to the GIEI and the Special Prosecutor for the Case.”

Following that they tweeted:

“Elements of the Navy cut the cartridge to the mothers and fathers of the 43, when they demanded to be heard and to open the files to clarify the events of Iguala.”

EFE reports:

“Parents of the 43 Ayotzinapa students disappeared since 2014 in Guerrero, vandalized Mexican Navy facilities on Tuesday [June 7] during their second day of the days of struggle to demand that the Government advance the investigations into the case.

After starting their march in the coastal city of Acapulco, the parents of the young people, along with around 500 students from different rural schools in the country, went to the facilities of the Eighth Naval Region to demand the delivery of the files of the night of September 26 and early morning of September 27, 2014. date on which the young people disappeared in Iguala.

The lawyer for the parents of the missing students, Vidulfo Rosales, asked to speak with the commander and access the Navy files to have more information regarding the 43 missing students, but the request was denied.

Not having a favorable response, a father of a family together with a member of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam, forcibly opened the doors of the naval base, managing to access these facilities.

A group of sailors prepared their weapons to shoot to prevent the demonstrators from advancing, but minutes later the navy troops were replaced by riot police.”

Frontera Informativa adds:

“A commission met with a Semar [Secretary of the Navy] commander; After half an hour, the lawyer of the Human Rights Center of the Tlachinollan Mountain, Vidulfo Rosales Sierra, reported that on June 27 they will be received to have access to the archives of that institution.

However, he reproached that the Federal Government keeps the investigations paused and that neither Semar nor the Ministry of National Defense have ratified the information they presented to clarify the case of the forced disappearance of the students.”

The “Ayotzinapa 43” were students from a politically radical, poor, mostly Indigenous teachers’ college in the town of Ayotzinapa in Guerrero. In September 2014 they were forcibly disappeared from a bus in the city of Iguala (about 200 kilometres north-west of the school) while they were en route to Mexico City to commemorate the anniversary of the Tlatelolco massacre (in which the Mexican Armed Forces had killed hundreds of people who were protesting against the Olympics on October 2, 1968).

On March 29, 2022, The Guardian reported: “Mexico’s armed forces knew that 43 student teachers who disappeared in 2014 were being kidnapped by criminals, then hid evidence that could have helped locate them, according to a report released by a special investigation.”

PBI-Mexico has accompanied the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center since late 2003.