Thousands march for 43 missing Mexican students

Tens of thousands of people held protests in Mexico on Wednesday to demand justice for 43 missing students amid fears they were executed by a police-backed gang. Crowds gathered from Mexico City to the violence-wracked state of Guerrero, where the students disappeared, and as far south as Chiapas. Parents of the victims traveled from Guerrero to head a march of thousands of people in Mexico City, tearfully holding up pictures of their sons, and signs reading “we want them back alive.” People watched from the sidewalk in tears, holding their fists up and chanting “you are not alone!” The young men disappeared on September 26 after municipal police officers working with a gang shot at buses seized by the aspiring teachers in the Guerrero city of Iguala and took several of them away in patrol cars.

We are sad but we will fight until the end. We demand that the president doesn’t just talk and send more forces to Guerrero.

19-year-old from the missing students’ teacher training school

A mass grave containing 28 unidentified bodies was discovered on the outskirts of Iguala last weekend, in the same location where two hitmen from the Guerreros Unidos gang confessed to executing 17 students. But authorities said it will take at least two weeks to confirm the identities of the bodies. In Guerrero state, tens of thousands marched and blocked the highway between the regional capital Chilpancingo and the resort of Acapulco. Thousands more protested in the southern state of Chiapas, with members of the Zapatista rebel movement taking part.

Americas Guerrero