PBI-Mexico accompanies the mobilizations on the 8th anniversary of the forced disappearance of the Ayotzinapa 43

On September 26, PBI-Mexico tweeted:

“#PBI accompanies the mobilizations on the 8th anniversary of the #Forced Disappearance of the #43 student teachers of #Ayotzinapa.”

El Universal has reported:

“At about 4:00 p.m. on Monday [September 26], the march for the National Day of Struggle will be held 8 years after what happened to the 43 students of the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa. The mobilization will advance from the Angel of Independence to the Zocalo of Mexico City, stopping at the anti-monument to the 43 that is located on Paseo de la Reforma at the junction with Bucareli and Avenida Juárez.”

NBC has further reported:

“In 2014, the Mexican government initially reported that 43 students from Ayotzinapa Teachers College who had commandeered some buses to go to a protest in Mexico City had been arrested on Sept. 26 by police in Iguala, then turned over to drug traffickers who killed and incinerated them at a garbage dump.

One month before the eight-year anniversary, a truth commission led by the Mexican government said that six out of the 43 missing students were allegedly kept alive for days and then handed over to a Mexican army commander at a base in Iguala who ordered their execution. 

On Aug. 20, 2022, Mexico’s former attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam, who had presented the 2014 account of the Ayotzinapa case, was charged with forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice in connection with the 43 students.

On Sept. 15, 2022, Mexican assistant public safety secretary, Ricardo Mejía, announced the arrest of retired general José Rodríguez Pérez, along with other members of the Mexican army, in connection with the disappearance of the students. Rodríguez Pérez was the commander of the Iguala base in 2014.”

AFP also notes: “Arrest warrants have been issued for more than 80 suspects, including military personnel, police officers and cartel members. But a lawyer for the victims’ families, Vidulfo Rosales [a lawyer with the PBI-Mexico accompanied Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre], told reporters that prosecutors had withdrawn at least 20 of the warrants.”

And earlier in the day, the Mexico News Daily reported:

“The truth commission report – of which a redacted version was made publicly available last month – asserts that the military played a central role in the disappearance of the students. …Revelations about the army’s alleged involvement in the students’ disappearance have triggered protests and attacks at military facilities in the lead-up to the eighth anniversary of the heinous crime.”

PBI-Mexico has accompanied the struggle for the truth since the disappearance of the student teachers eight years ago.