Thousands of Mexicans from across the country took to the streets yesterday to demand answers about the fate of 43 students who are still missing after they disappeared in the city of Iguala in late September.
The protest is part of a 72 hour strike staged by nearly 100 universities throughout Mexico and also includes family members of the missing students, as well as fellow students from their teaching training school in Ayotzinapa. In Mexico City, demonstrators marched from Los Pinos, the official residence of the president, to the Zócalo, demanding that the students be returned, dead or alive.
The former mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca, and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, were arrested on Tuesday in Mexico City for their alleged roles in the students’ disappearance. Mexican Attorney General Jesús Murillo accused Abarca of ordering police to attack the students to prevent them from disrupting a speech being given by his wife.
President Enrique Peña Nieto has addressed the disappearances by deploying federal police to Iguala in mid-October and by meeting with relatives of the missing students last week. Although Mexico’s homicide rate has decreased over the past two years, protests have intensified as enraged Mexicans cite a lack of institutional accountability for the more than 20,000 people that have gone missing in Mexico over the past decade.
