Families Protest 11 Years After 43 Mexican Students Disappeared

Eleven years after 43 Mexican students vanished, frustration and grief remain raw as families demand answers from authorities accused of complicity and negligence.

The students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college — known for its political activism — disappeared on September 26, 2014, after commandeering buses to attend a demonstration in Mexico City. They were allegedly kidnapped by a drug cartel working with corrupt police.

In Mexico City on Friday, thousands marched in the rain to mark the anniversary. Among them was Delfina de la Cruz, who lost her son in the tragedy.

“We are back where we started,” she said. “I want to see my son, (know) what happened, where he is, if he is no longer there.”

So far, only three students’ remains have been identified. The fate of the others remains unknown.

Despite dozens of prosecutions — including of a former attorney general and military officials — no one has been convicted. Families accuse the army of withholding critical information.

Retired professor Jesus Gumaro, 66, joined the protest with a banner criticizing former president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum. “We had hoped that it would be solved, but nothing has happened,” he said.

Tensions escalated Thursday when protesters rammed a truck into a military barracks gate in Mexico City, demanding accountability. No injuries were reported.

The Ayotzinapa case, one of Mexico’s worst human rights scandals, has become symbolic of the country’s broader crisis of disappearances — with more than 120,000 missing and over 450,000 killed in drug-related violence since 2006.

The official version released in 2015 under then-president Enrique Peña Nieto — claiming the students’ remains were burned and dumped in a river in Guerrero — was widely discredited.

In 2022, a truth commission established by Lopez Obrador declared the disappearances a “state crime,” accusing the military of direct involvement or negligence, noting it had real-time knowledge of the abductions.

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