Mystery of Mexico's missing 43 students - and the families who demand answers
Nine years ago, a group of 43 Mexican students headed out to a protest - only for a deadly confrontation with police to ensue.
The trainee teachers were students at an all-male teacher training college in the town of Ayotzinapa, located in south-western Guerrero state. The rural college was known as a hotbed of left-wing activism, and the students in question were known to be active protesters.
As detailed in the harrowing BBC Two documentary Disappeared: Mexico's Missing 43, airing tonight, on September 26, 2014, the 43 students travelled to the neighbouring town of Iguala, as part of a larger group, to protest against discriminatory hiring practices in the education sector. They had also intended to travel onward to
to mark the 46th anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre - a tragedy that saw the military kill hundreds of students in Tlatelolco plaza.
After the protest, the students commandeered buses, as they had done on previous occasions without incident, to make the approximate 120-mile journey to Mexico City. Mere minutes after they left the bus station, however, municipal police opened fire on the vehicles.
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Officers opened fire on the buses, with deadly consequences (Government of Guerrero)BBC News reports that the officers maintain they opened fire because they believed the buses had been hijacked, however, surviving students have stated that the drivers had freely agreed to give them lifts, and hadn't been forced. Two students were shot dead at the scene, while the mutilated body of a third student was discovered close to where the incident happened the following morning.
Officers also mistakenly fired at a bus carrying a local football team, fatally shooting the driver and one of the teammates, while another bullet struck and killed a woman who'd been travelling in a taxi. A further 43 students disappeared following the altercation, and their families are still looking for answers to this day. In the years since, bone fragments of three of the men have been recovered and formally identified, but the whereabouts of the other 40 remain a mystery.
President Enrique Peña Nieto's government initially attempted to close the case, stating that local authorities had colluded with a drug cartel to arrest the students. Multiple drug traffickers testified that they had been given over to and murdered by the Guerreros Unidos cartel, who then incinerated their remains at the Cocula garbage dump.
However, the investigative body of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has since helped reopen the case by revealing how suspects were tortured by authorities to obtain their testimony. This July, a panel of independent investigators presented evidence in its sixth and last report in what has been a multiyear investigation into the missing students. It was concluded that Mexican security forces at the local, state, and federal levels had 'all collaborated to make them disappear'.
Experts found that the government had falsified information (AFP via Getty Images)According to these experts, the government had deliberately falsified information and withheld leads. Evidence to support such claims includes drone photos and footage that could have shown marines staging the area where the individuals had reportedly been murdered.
Back in September, families of those missing marched through Mexico City, demanding answers. Antonio Tizapa, the father of one of the missing students, told NBC News: "It's complicated. You're looking for your son, and the government denies you justice. If they don't want us to keep protesting in the streets, tell us where our children are."
Featured in the new documentary is Luz María Telumbre, who doesn't know what happened to her only son, Christian. In 2020, she and her husband Clemente were given a fragment of bone from his right foot. "While I don't have a whole body, my struggle continues," Clemente told the documentary.
The first episode of Disappeared: Mexico's Missing 43 will air 9pm, Thursday, December 17 on BBC Two
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