WE ASK THE WORLD TO KEEP AN EYE ON US TODAY.
On September 26, 2014, 43 students from the RaĂșl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers College of Ayotzinapa went missing in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico.
According to official reports, they had travelled to Iguala that day to hold a protest for what they considered discriminatory hiring and funding practices by the government. During the journey the local police intercepted them and a confrontation ensued. Details of what happened during and after the clash remain unclear, but the official investigation concluded that once the students were in custody, they were handed over to the Guerreros Unidos crime syndicate and presumably killed.
Mexican authorities believe that Iguala mayor JosĂ© Luis Abarca VelĂĄzquez and his wife MarĂa de los Ăngeles Pineda Villa were the probable masterminds of the abduction. Both of them became fugitives after the incident along with the townâs police chief Felipe Flores VelĂĄsquez. The couple was arrested about a month later in Mexico City. The mass kidnapping of the students quickly snowballed into the biggest political and public security scandal Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto had faced in his administration. It led to massive protests all across Mexico, particularly in the state of Guerrero and Mexico City, and condemnations at a global scale.
A mass grave, initially believed to contain the charred bodies of 28 of the students, was discovered near Iguala on October 5, 2014. They had been tortured and, according to reports, burned alive, three gang members confessed to loading them on to trucks, murdering them at a landfill, burning their bodies and dumping their remains in a river.
âThe detainees pointed out that in this area they took the lives of the survivors and then they put them under the rubbish dump where they burnt the bodies.âThey took shifts so that the fire lasted hours, using diesel, petrol, tires, plastic.â
Subsequent reports raised the estimate of the number of found bodies to 34.
On October 14, police announced that forensic tests had shown that none of the 28 bodies from the first mass grave corresponded to the missing students, but the same day four additional graves, with an unknown number of bodies, were discovered.
Many protesters in Mexico City carried handmade banners with the words Ya me cansĂ© (âIâve Had Enoughâ or âIâm Tiredâ), in reference to a comment made by Mexicoâs attorney general, JesĂșs Murillo, at the end of the press conference on Friday.
The phrase has been turned on its head to express public exhaustion with both the violence that has taken hold in many parts of Mexico, where organised criminal activity is protected by corrupt authorities, as well as the federal governmentâs failure to act against it, which many believe underpins the events in Iguala.
Protesters also chanted: âIt was the stateâ, in an effort to push home the message that the federal authorities have yet to accept the depth of the institutional crisis exposed by the apparent massacre.
We demand that the truth about Mexico has to be told, our media is partial to our corrupt government, but we have social media and we have our streets, we will march, we will protest, we will not remain silent.
PLEASE SHARE OUR INFORMATION, OUR VIDEOS, OUR PLIGHT.
"WE WERE SEARCHING FOR 43 BUT WE FOUND HUNDRED, THOUSANDS, WITHOUT A FACE, WITHOUT AN IDENTITY."
#AccionGlobalporAyotzinapa #JusticeForAyotzinapa #YaMeCanse
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