Mexican students missing

In Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, on Sept. 27, students from a teaching college who were protesting unfair hiring practices were fired on by police as they boarded buses they had hired to transport them. Six people were killed. Witnesses say 43 students then surrendered to police, were forced into police vehicles and have been missing ever since.

Searches for the missing students have uncovered more than a dozen mass graves around Iguala. DNA tests have, so far, excluded the missing students from being among any of the uncovered bodies. 

On Oct. 14, protesters demanding the return of the students burned state government buildings in Guerrero’s capital, Chilpancingo. Protests in support of the missing students have occurred throughout the country, including in Mexico City.

Mexican federal police were deployed to 13 towns in the area on Oct. 20 to restore peace. As of press time, they had arrested 56 people allegedly involved in the students’ disappearance, including police and government officials and members of the Guerreros Unidos gang. Arrested officers reported that they turned the students over to the gang after detaining them. 

Mexico’s attorney general issued a warrant for the arrest of Iguala’s mayor, José Luis Abarca, and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, and Iguala’s chief of police, accusing them of ordering the attack on the students. All three fled the city after the protests and, at press time, had not been seen.

The US Department of State recommends travelers defer nonessential travel to Guerrero, except for the cities of Acapulco, Zihuatanejo, Ixtapa and Taxco and the caves at Grutas de Cacahuamilpa. Even in these tourist-friendly places, caution should be exercised. According to the Mexican Executive Secretary of National Public Security, Guerrero was the most violent state in Mexico in 2013, with 2,087 homicides and 207 reported cases of kidnapping.