Families of 43 missing students in Mexico are still demanding justice 10 years later

MEXICO CITY — Families of the 43 students from a rural teacher’s college abducted 10 years ago in southern Mexico marked the painful anniversary Thursday, disillusioned after what they say was a decade of unfulfilled government promises.

Thousands marched with the families in the rain through Mexico's capital, demanding the truth about what happened and justice for the missing.

“The first time we came through here, who could have imagined that all of this time would pass and (we're) here again without answers,” said Margarito Guerrero, the father of missing student Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz.

Guerrero appreciated those who accompanied them, like Lourdes Silva, a homemaker, participating in her first march with her daughter, a student who has been following the families' movement for a decade.

“We need to keep pressuring,” Silva said. “We want this agony to end for the parents.”

The anniversary falls just four days before the departure of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose election in 2018 generated hope among the families.

His administration made some early advances, established a Truth Commission and declared the disappearances a “state crime.” But when the investigation stalled without the cooperation of the military, the president closed ranks with the generals.

“He gave us a lot of hope,” said Joaquina García, mother of missing student Martín Getsemany Sánchez. “But it looks like he really protects the military and that’s not fair.”

On Sept. 26, 2014, students from the Rural Normal School at Ayotzinapa went to Iguala to steal buses — a common way they obtained transportation. They were attacked by a local drug gang in cahoots with local, state and federal authorities.

Two administrations later, many details of what happened to the students and most importantly where they are remain unknown. They are among the more than 115,000 recorded missing in Mexico.

“Ten years of suffering, 10 years of pain, of not having your son isn’t easy,” García said at an event Thursday at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. “Here we’re shouting to see if the people who took our children will find it in their heart.”

Some 120 people are in custody. Mexico’s former attorney general has been charged in inventing a false narrative about what happened.

López Obrador had promised to solve the mystery. But on Wednesday, he downplayed, minimized and even pushed back against the findings of his own administration, asserting that those trying to link the military are driven by “political interests.”

The United Nations Human Rights Office lamented in a statement Thursday the “unsatisfactory results” of authorities. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which sent experts to Mexico to aid in the investigation for eight years said in a statement it was worried the investigation had stalled and denounced a “pact of silence that has impeded the identification of the perpetrators and those who cover for them.”

The families are prepared to pressure incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum as well.

“We're going to press her if she doesn't respond,” Guerrero said.

García agreed. “This fight is not over.”