Parents and classmates of 43 missing Mexican students have staged a protest march in the nation’s capital of Mexico City to mark the seventh month since the yet unsolved disappearance of their loved ones.
The Sunday evening demonstration came as parents of the missing Ayotzinapa students have rejected the official version of what happened to their children on September 26 of last year, accusing authorities of being involved in their children’s disappearance.
The protesters in the Mexican capital installed a monument in honor of the 43 missing college students at the central Reforma avenue, made up of a huge number 43 in red with a plus sign, representing the thousands of victims of forced disappearances in Mexico.
The protest rally came after the Attorney General Office has rejected an official request filed by the parents of the missing students as well as human rights organizations to prosecute those implicated in their disappearance under the crime of “forced disappearance.”
By initiating the legal effort, the parents and organizations were hoping to discover new leads in the investigation, which has been mired for months due to widely-suspected official corruption.
A major protest rally was also held in Mexico’s state of Guerrero with protesters demanding justice and a proper probe into the suspicious case and the whereabouts of the students, who were reportedly abducted by local police officers in September 2014 and handed over to a drug gang. The student victims were last seen alive during a protest in the town of Iguala.
MFB/NN/HRB