Mexican authorities have issued arrest warrants against the military who may have been involved in the disappearance of 43 students in 2014, investigator Omar Gomez said on Saturday.
The students disappeared in 2014 in the city of Iguala in the Mexican state of Guerrero. They were presumably kidnapped by police officers and then handed over to a criminal organization. Members of that organization later admitted that the students were murdered and their bodies burned.
An international investigation team accused the Mexican military of being involved in the disappearances in 2016. The military is said to be withholding important evidence, including photos and videos of a student protest in 2014.
The remains of two of the 43 students have been found. Bones, among other things, were found in November 2019. Identification by researchers at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, showed last July that it was the bones of the missing student Christian Alfonso Rodríguez. Also in December 2014, a body was identified in the case.
Thousands protested against disappearance
In January 2015, the students were officially declared dead. Authorities assumed all 43 had been “kidnapped, killed and burned”. Then their bodies would have been thrown into a river. However, the discovery of the remains contradicts this.
The case sparked major protests all over Mexico. Thousands of people protested against the authorities, who hold them responsible for the disappearances. The current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, promised to give attention to the matter when he took office.
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