Mexico City, January 27 (RHC-teleSUR) -- Relatives of the 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students marched in Mexico City on Tuesday to mark 16 months since the forcible disappearance of their loved ones in Iguala, Guerrero in September 2014 – and to continue demanding justice from Mexican authorities.
Family members and supporters marched from the Angel of Independence in downtown Mexico City to the Supreme Court, holding posters with the faces of the 43 missing students and black flags as a sign of mourning.
Protesters called for an independent and impartial exercise of justice in the case and carried out a symbolic funeral with an empty coffin in front of the Attorney General’s office.
Parents said they have heard that local police officers are being protected to avoid prosecution in connection with the Ayotzinapa case, but vowed that they will not give up their calls for justice.
“The district judges reasonably doubt that the police in Iguala and Cocula murdered our comrades. We believe that that is unheard of,” said Sayuri Herrera, the lawyer of the family of Julio Cesar Mondragon, whose murdered body was found with a mutilated face. “We believe that it cannot be these circumstances. There is already sufficient evidence to issue formal arrest warrants.”
Mondragon’s family criticized authorities for arresting Mauro Taboada Salgado, one of three suspects detained last week for links for the Ayotzinapa disappearances, arguing there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute Salgado.
The three arrests brought the total number of people detained in connection with the Ayotzinapa case to 116.
The official version of the Ayotzinapa case is that local police abducted the 43 students in Iguala and handed them over to Guerreros Unidos, a drug cartel whose members killed the students, burned their bodies in the Cocula garbage dump, and tossed their remains into the San Juan River near the town of Cocula.
Independent investigators and families of the victims have repeatedly cast doubt on the government’s story, arguing there is no evidence to support the claim that the bodies were burned in the Cocula dump.
