It's been a decade since 43 students disappeared in Mexico. Their parents still fight for answers

TIXTLA, México (AP) — Clemente Rodríguez has been documenting the long search for his missing son with tattoos.

First, it was an ink drawing of a turtle — a symbol of 19-year-old Christian Rodríguez's school — with a smaller turtle on its shell. Then, an image of Mexico's patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe, accompanied by the number 43. Later, a tiger for strength and a dove for hope.

“How else is my son going to know that I have been looking for him?” asked Rodríguez. To the heartbroken father, the body art is evidence that he never stopped searching — proof he could perhaps one day show to his boy.

On Sept. 26, 2014, Christian Rodríguez, a tall boy who loved to folk dance and had just enrolled in a teachers college in the southern state of Guerrero, disappeared along with 42 classmates. Every year since, on the 26th of each month, Clemente Rodríguez, his wife, Luz María Telumbre, and other families meet at the Rural Normal School at Ayotzinapa and take a long bus ride to the capital, Mexico City, to demand answers.

They will do so again next week, on the 10th anniversary of their sons’ disappearance.

“It is hard, very hard,” Clemente Rodríguez said.

Rodríguez and the other parents are not alone. The 43 students are among more than 115,000 people still reported as missing in Mexico, a reflection of numerous unresolved crimes in a country where human rights activists say violence, corruption and impunity have long been the norm.

Over the years, authorities have offered different explanations. The previous administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto said that the students were attacked by security forces linked to a local drug cartel, and that the bodies were then turned over to organized crime figures, who burned their bodies in a dump and threw their ashes in a river. A bone fragment of one of the students was later found in the river.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's administration confirmed the source of the attack. But the current justice department — along with the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights and a Truth Commission formed specifically to investigate the students’ disappearance — refuted the story about the incineration of the bodies in a dump. They accused top former officials of planting the bone fragment in the river to suit their narrative. They also unearthed clues in a different location, including bone fragments from one of Christian's feet.

But the families still don't have any solid answers about what happened to the students. For his part, Clemente Rodríguez is far from convinced that his son is dead.

Not long after the students disappeared, parents took matters into their own hands, charging into remote, often gang-controlled mountain towns to search for their children. They encountered others who had been displaced by violence. Fear was everywhere.

“When I left the house, I never knew if I would come back alive,” Rodríguez said.

During the search, Christina Bautista, the 49-year-old mother of missing student Benjamin Ascencio, says strangers told her they'd been searching for a son for three years or a daughter for five. She had thought it would be a matter of weeks.

“I couldn’t take it, I took off running,” she said. “How could there be so many disappeared?”

Dozens of bodies were found, but not those of their children.

A decade of fighting to keep the case alive has turned the parents’ lives inside out. Before his son’s disappearance, Rodríguez sold jugs of water from the back of his pickup and tended a small menagerie of animals in the town of Tixtla, not far from the school. Telumbre sold handmade tortillas cooked over a wood fire.

When the students vanished, however, they dropped everything. Parents sold or abandoned their animals, left fields untended and entrusted grandparents with the care of other children.

Rodríguez, 56, has since managed to partially reassemble his clutch of livestock and has planted some corn on the family's plot of land. The family's main income, however, comes from homemade crafts sold on trips to Mexico City: mats woven from reeds; bottles of an uncle's locally brewed mezcal decorated with twine and colorful tiger faces; and cloth napkins embroidered by Telumbre.

Sometimes the stocky, soft-spoken Rodríguez visits his land to think or to release his anger and sadness. “I start to cry, let it all go,” he said.

Parents also find solace at the Rural Normal School at Ayotzinapa.

The school, which trains students to teach in poor remote villages, is part of a network of rural educational facilities with a long history of radical activism. School walls painted with slogans demanding justice for the missing students also display murals honoring Che Guevara and Karl Marx.

For the poorest families, Ayotzinapa offers a way out: Students receive free room, board and an education. In exchange, they work.

The atmosphere has militaristic undertones: New students’ heads are shaved and the first year is about discipline and survival. They are tasked with tending cattle, planting fields and commandeering buses to drive to protests in the capital. The students who disappeared in 2014 were abducted from five buses they had taken over in the city of Iguala, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the school.

Parents arrived at Ayotzinapa little by little from villages deep in the mountains. They gathered on the school’s basketball court, a concrete pad under a pavilion where 43 chairs still hold photos of each of the missing students.

In the years since, a certain codependency has developed. The school's fight for justice is fueled by the parents' grief and anger. The school's students, meanwhile, “are our strong arm,” Bautista says. “Here is where the movement started.”

Students treat the parents respectfully and affectionately, greeting them as “aunt” or “uncle” as they pass through the guarded gates.

In late August, Rodríguez and other parents met for the last time with López Obrador, who leaves office at the end of this month.

The exchange was a grave disappointment.

“Right now, this administration is just like that of Enrique Peña Nieto,” Rodríguez said. “He’s tried to mock us” by hiding information, protecting the Army and insulting the families' lawyers, he said.

López Obrador continues to insist that his government has done its best to find answers. He cites dozens of arrests, including that of a former attorney general charged with obstructing justice. He has downplayed the role of the military, however. Years ago, López Obrador declared the students’ abduction a “state crime,” pointing to the involvement of local, state and federal authorities, including the Army.

The families met in July with López Obrador’s successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, who will take office Oct. 1, but she made no promises or commitments.

After the August meeting, Rodríguez posed for a portrait in the National Palace, his gaze firm and his fist raised.

Like other parents, he vows to keep fighting.

“During these 10 years, we have learned a lot about obfuscation ... lies,” Rodríguez said. Top military and government authorities “have the answers,” he added.

“They can reveal them."

Luz María Telumbre, whose son Christian is one of 43 missing students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School, protests for justice in the 10-year case in Mexico City, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Jesus Castro Rafaela, a first-year student at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School protests for justice in the 10-year case of 43 missing classmates, in Mexico City, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Indigenous women protest for justice in the 10-year case of 43 missing students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Mexico City, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Posters of the 43 missing students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School hang on the roadside, seen from the bus of their families who are traveling from Tixtla, Guerrero state, to the capital to protest for justice 10 years since their disappearance, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Christian Rodríguez's sister Carmen busses to the capital to protest for justice in the 10-year case of 43 missing students, including her brother, after departing Tixtla, Guerrero state, Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024. The missing students were all from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

First-year students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School bus from Tixtla, Guerrero state, to the capital to protest for justice in the 10-year case of their 43 missing classmates, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A religious altar that reads in Spanish "We are missing 43!" stands inside the home of Cristina Bautista in Tixtla, Guerrero state, Mexico, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. Bautista is the mother of Benjamin Ascencio, one of the 43 missing students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Cristina Bautista, whose son Benjamin Ascencio is one of 43 missing students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School who went missing 10 years prior, embroiders her son's name at home in Tixtla, Guerrero state, Mexico, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Mayrani Ascencio, whose brother Benjamin is one of 43 missing students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School stands at home in Tixtla, Guerrero state, Mexico, late Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Clemente Rodriguez, whose son Christian is one of 43 missing students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School attends his corn crop in Tixtla, Guerrero state, Mexico, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Clemente Rodríguez and Luz María Telumbre, whose son Christian is one of 43 missing students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School bottle mezcal at home in Tixtla, Guerrero state, Mexico, to sell in the capital, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A student walks at the dormitory of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A student plays with a dog outside his dormitory at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Erick de la Cruz jokes around on the first day of class at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

First-year students line up before starting cleanup work at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A student walks on the campus of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, late Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

First-year students gather in the dining hall at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Murals and the number 43 decorate the dormitory area at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School, the teachers' college from where 43 students went missing 10 years ago, in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Students cut each other's hair at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Political posters and stickers hang inside the print shop at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

First-year students at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School sweep the parking lot of their school in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A mural covers the dormitories of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Students leave the dormitory area of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

First-year student Jesus Castro Rafaela walks inside the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School where a sign memorializes Julio Cesar Mondragon Fontes, a student who died on the night that 43 fellow students went missing, in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

First-year students walk by a mural featuring some of their 43 missing classmates at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Students check their schedules on the first day of classes at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, state, Mexico, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Students' clothes hang to dry in a field at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

The entrance of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School features a turtle and the words "We want the 43," referring to the number of students who went missing 10 years ago, in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. Ayotzinapa means "The place of the turtles" in the Nahuatl Indigenous language. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

The Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School stands in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Photos of 43 students who have been missing for 10 years cover the stairs at their former Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the union stronghold of Flint, Michigan, on Friday as she battles with Donald Trump for working-class voters who could tip the scales in this year’s election.

Her appearance in the battleground state comes the day after U.S. dockworkers suspended their strike in hopes of reaching a new contract, sparing the country a damaging episode of labor unrest that could have rattled the economy.

Meanwhile, Trump is heading to Georgia to appear with Gov. Brian Kemp, the latest sign that he’s patched up his rocky relationship with the top Republican in a key battleground state.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

President Joe Biden said Friday that he was confident the upcoming election would be free and fair - but he’s not sure it will be peaceful.

Biden made a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room to discuss the strong jobs report that he called “incredible news,” and he took some questions. He was asked about how he was feeling about the upcoming election.

“I’m confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it will be peaceful,” he said. “The things that Trump has said - and the the things that he said last time, when he didn’t like the outcome of the election -- were very dangerous.”

Trump still falsely claims the 2020 election was stolen.

Biden was also asked, as he left the room, whether he was going to reconsider running for president.

“I’m back in” he joked, and the reporters all laughed.

Election experts during a virtual panel held by the National Task Force on Election Crises on Friday acknowledged that western North Carolina officials are still in the early phases of assessing how hurricane damage will affect voting.

The process has been delayed with bridges and roads compromised and emergency crews still actively working to rescue stranded residents and provide people with basic supplies, said Robert Orr, a retired North Carolina Supreme Court Justice who co-leads the North Carolina Network for Fair, Safe and Secure Elections.

Paying for last-minute election changes could pose a challenge, Orr said. Most North Carolina election funding happens locally, and most county election budgets are already diminished because they had to reprint ballots to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name, he said.

Most North Carolina residents are still focused on basic survival and recovery over voting, said Anne Tindall, special counsel of the nonprofit Protect Democracy.

Four people intentionally voted twice in Michigan’s summer primary election, the state attorney general said Friday as she announced felony charges against the suburban Detroit residents as well as public employees accused of enabling it to happen.

Attorney General Dana Nessel announced charges against the St. Clair Shores residents as well as three assistant clerks who are accused of enabling it to happen. Nessel called it “shocking and simply unheard of.” Nessel said four people who had already cast absentee ballots for the Aug. 6 primary showed up to vote in St. Clair Shores on the day of the election.

It’s possible to cancel an absentee ballot but not on Election Day.

The extra votes did not affect race results, she said.

Casey and Biden are allies and friends. Biden hasn’t done much campaigning since he left the 2024 race over the summer and Vice President Kamala Harris replaced him at the top of the ticket.

The president will also travel to Wisconsin where he’ll talk about efforts by his administration to replace lead pipes. That’s something Biden has continued to do — talk publicly about his administration’s successes and his record in office. He has told his team to “run through the tape.”

Elon Musk will join Donald Trump at his rally Saturday in Butler, the Pennsylvania city where the Republican presidential nominee survived an assassination attempt earlier this year.

“I will be there to support!” Musk wrote on his social platform X on Thursday in a retweet of Trump’s own promotion of the rally. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO will be among special guests in attendance, Trump’s campaign confirmed Friday.

The event will mark the first time the billionaire businessman appears publicly at a campaign event for the former president since endorsing him. Musk has supercharged his support for Trump in recent months and has become personally more invested in politics — even agreeing to lead a government efficiency commission if Trump wins reelection.

Saturday’s rally will take place at the same property where a gunman’s bullets grazed Trump’s right ear and killed his supporter, Corey Comperatore. The shooting left multiple others injured.

The Democratic presidential nominee has already been to Georgia, where she helped distribute meals and spoke with families in Augusta. More than 200 people died in the powerful storm that spread out across the Southeast, causing devastation. President Joe Biden, too, has traveled to areas hard-hit by the storm.

From Georgia, Harris said she and Biden have been paying attention “from the beginning to what we need to do to make sure the federal resources hit the ground as quickly as possible, and that includes what was necessary to make sure that we provided direct federal assistance. And that work has been happening.”

Their travel comes as Republican Donald Trump is falsely claiming the federal government wasn't doing enough to help affected people in Republican areas. Biden was angered by the suggestion, calling it a lie. He said partisan politics should not be part of this conversation.

Former President Barack Obama is planning to hit key swing states to boost Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for the White House, starting on Thursday in Pittsburgh.

The Harris campaign says Obama will travel around the country over the final 27 days ahead of the election. It noted that the former president and Harris have a friendship that goes back 20 years, from when they first met while he was running for Senate.

Harris was also an early supporter of Obama’s 2008 presidential bid and knocked on doors for him in Iowa ahead of its caucus that led off voting in the Democratic primary.

In his speech at the Democratic convention in August, Obama said Harris “wasn’t born into privilege. She had to work for what she’s got.”

“And she actually cares about what other people are going through,” the former president added then.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump dances at a campaign event at the Ryder Center at Saginaw Valley State University, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in University Center, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she arrives on Air Force Two at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Mich., Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)