Case of Mexico's 43 missing students persists among tens of thousands of disappearances

MEXICO CITY (AP) — All countries have crimes that resonate. In Mexico, one of the modern day ones is the disappearance of 43 students from a rural teacher’s college in 2014.

Ten years later, it’s still not clear where the students from the Rural Normal School at Ayotzinapa are. Authorities believe they were killed, but have only turned up small bone fragments from three of them.

The families, with the support of the school known for its radical activism, continue to demand justice. They maintain a lack of political will is responsible for not finding the truth. If it was a “state crime” as the current administration says, the government must know what happened and who is hiding information.

In a country with more than 115,000 registered disappearances, this case continues to hold the public’s attention because it combined cartel violence and corrupt authorities and remains stubbornly unresolved.

It’s considered an emblematic case and another example of abuses that occurred decades ago in Mexico’s dirty war and were never corrected.

The students were attacked by security forces linked to a local drug gang, Guerreros Unidos, in Iguala, when the students were stealing buses to transport themselves to a protest.

During the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), authorities said the students had gone to Iguala, Guerrero to protest at an event — the mayor, now jailed, was linked to local gang Guerreros Unidos. They were allegedly mistaken for members of a rival gang.

The Peña Nieto administration said that Guerreros Unidos had abducted and killed the students, burned their bodies in a huge fire and tossed their ashes into a river.

But investigations by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the successor Attorney General’s Office and a Truth Commission created in 2019, found that the fire at a dump was a lie built on false statements extracted under torture and manipulated evidence.

Those subsequent investigations found that an enormous operation was put in motion that night involving members of Guerreros Unidos, but also local, state and federal police. And the army was aware of everything that was happening because it had a base in Iguala, soldiers in the streets and spies among the students.

Investigators said members of the army were involved with the gang in smuggling heroin from the mountains of Guerrero on buses to the United States. Prosecutors said the decision to hide the truth was taken at the highest levels of government.

There are more than 100 people in custody and dozens have been charged, but no one has been convicted.

At the end of the previous administration, Mexican courts determined that the investigation was plagued by errors and manipulation. There were dozens of cases of torture.

Those abuses and missteps led to many of those involved being released. Some have been arrested again under the current administration.

The highest-ranking person charged is former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam, who is accused of torture, forced disappearance and obstruction of justice. There are also 16 soldiers, most of whom are awaiting trial on house arrest, which infuriates the students’ families.

López Obrador had promised to find the students and hold those responsible accountable. But in 2022, when more and more evidence pointed toward the military’s involvement in the attack and cover-up the administration’s tone changed.

The president had ordered the military to open its archives to investigators. That didn’t happen. Instead, López Obrador shifted more power and responsibility to the military than any president in recent history.

The prosecutor leading the investigation, Omar García Trejo, was suddenly demoted after he sought arrest orders for two dozen soldiers. He was replaced by someone unfamiliar with the case.

There was also growing political pressure to show results, said Santiago Aguirre, one of the families’ lawyers. The administration presented some evidence that did not appear to come from reliable sources and the government’s searches turned slipshod.

Where do the families want the investigation to go?

Their lawyers point out key arrests are still lacking, among them the man who led the investigation during the Peña Nieto administration, Tomás Zerón. In videos, Zerón is seen interrogating and threatening prisoners. He sought refuge in Israel, which has not agreed to extradite him despite Mexico’s request.

They also say they want to see military intelligence records from that night that they still haven’t had access to. They want too more cooperation from the United States government, which has prosecuted members of Guerreros Unidos in drug trafficking cases that also revealed their ties to the military.

Follow AP's Latin America coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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)

Trash lays at the dump in Cocula, near Iguala, Guerrero state, Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Over the years, authorities have offered different explanations of the fate of the 43 students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School who went missing 10 years ago, and the current justice department refutes the story about the incineration of their bodies at this dump. (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)

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)

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 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)

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)

FILE - People protest the disappearance of 43 students from Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School and demand authorities find them, in Chilpancingo, Guerrero state, Mexico, Oct. 8, 2014. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)

FILE - Mexico's Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam attends a press conference in Mexico City, Friday, Feb. 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

Classmates of the 43 Ayotzinapa students who went missing almost 10 years ago march to demand justice for their loved ones in Chilpancingo, Mexico, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 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)

ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.

The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.

The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.

The U.S.-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Islamic State group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria's national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.

The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”

The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.

Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.

The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.

On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.

Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.

“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”

Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.

Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.

“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.

Associated Press journalist Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

Sandbag barriers used as fighting positions by Kurdish fighters, left inside a destroyed mosque in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

Burned vehicles at one of the Kurdish fighters positions at the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

People flee the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

A Syrian military police convoy enters the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

Burned vehicles and ammunitions left at one of the Kurdish fighters positions at the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)