Ayotzinapa: Mexicans Mark One Year Since the Disappearance of the 43 “Normalistas”

!!!

On September 26, 2014, 43 student teachers from the Escuela Normal Rural “Raúl Isidrio Burgos” in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero were abducted in mass near Iguala, Guerrero.  They had commandeered several buses to travel to Iguala so they could protest at a rally led by María de Los Angeles Pineda Villa, the wife of Iguala’s mayor, José Luis Abarca Velázquez.  The official version of events states that the 43 young men were waylaid by local police, resulting in a violent clash.  Details remain fuzzy, but they were then allegedly handed over to the Guerreros Unidos criminal drug gang, who reportedly killed them and burned their bodies at a municipal garbage dump.  A year later the parents of the “normalistas” reject this version of events and demand the return of their sons, while most Mexicans, as well as millions of other Latin Americans, believe a lot is missing from the story told by officials.