In September 2014, 43 students were abducted by the police in Mexico. While their disappearance is still a mystery eight years later, the Mexican government declares the young men dead. But the investigation is ongoing, and the former Attorney General now has to answer.
The relatives of the 43 students remain silent when they learn the bitter truth. It’s a stillness full of pain. A so-called truth commission has declared the young men kidnapped in southwest Mexico eight years ago to be dead. There is no longer any hope of finding her alive. The parents leave the National Palace with boxes full of documents that dashed their hopes. Although the case has not yet been fully clarified, it is already clear: in addition to the drug cartels, the state also has blood on its hands.
Police arrested former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam in Mexico City on Friday. He faces charges of enforced disappearance, torture and offenses against the administration of justice in connection with the case. He was initially responsible for investigating the kidnapping of the students and presented his first findings as “historical truth”.
The students at the Ayotzinapa teacher training college in Guerrero state disappeared on the night of September 27, 2014. The youngest of them was just 17 years old at the time. Police officers chased them, shot at them, overpowered them and finally handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel. Six people died and 25 were injured. Several of the weapons used came from the German armaments company Heckler
Even in a country with more than 100,000 missing people, the students’ case is extraordinary. It was a state crime, says the head of the truth commission, Alejandro Encinas. The photos of members of humble farming families with pictures of their young went around the world. Only bone fragments from three of the missing have been found so far. The reasons for the attack on the students are still unclear.
The young men had previously hijacked several buses in the city of Iguala to go to a demonstration in the capital, Mexico City. But that was usual in the militant left-wing country university of Ayotzinapa – and was actually tolerated.
The Truth Commission report now cites three hypotheses for the escalation of violence: First, the local drug cartel Guerreros Unidos may have identified someone among the students with ties to a rival gang. Second, the large group of young people were mistaken for opponents. Third, one of the hijacked buses contained hidden drugs or money.
All levels of government share responsibility for the fate of students, Commission chief Encinas says. The military too. “Their actions, involvement and inaction enabled the disappearance and execution of the students and the killing of another six people.”
The victims’ families initially declined to comment. The results are too painful for them, their representatives say. The document is a compendium of horror: important eyewitnesses were killed in the course of the investigation. 77 suspects were tortured by officers and then released. The now arrested top investigator Murillo Karam announced shortly after the disappearance that the young men had been killed and burned in a rubbish dump. However, this version was completely rejected by independent investigations.
After taking office in 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador established the Truth Commission to review the case and search for the students. The relatives got a new reason for hope. “We have said from the beginning that we are telling the truth, no matter how painful it may be,” says López Obrador. The President promises that the case will not be closed. Investigators will continue to look for those responsible. What is probably the most monstrous crime in recent history in Mexico has not yet been solved.
