43 MISSING STUDENTS IN MEXICO
Updated: Feb 3, 2022
'They tried to bury us, but they didn't know that we were seeds'
Beginning:
The Iguala mass kidnapping took place on 26 September 2014, when 43 male students were kidnapped from Iguala Mexico. This case was huge in Mexico and perplexed everyone because 43 humans were taken and never seen again.
Not only the students who were kidnapped were affected, but their families and their college peers were deeply affected as well.
There are multiple theories regarding this case but no one truly knows where they are and what happened to the students.
Background:
On 26 September 2014, over 100 students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers' college went to protest at an event. It is a male only teacher training college which is actually known for its radical political stance. The school was established to provide free education to young people in impoverished areas who would later go on to teach in rural places.
The students were heading to a nearby town called Iguala to protest against a function organized by the mayor of Iguala, José Luis Abarca and his wife Maria De Los Angeles. They had gone to protest against the discriminatory hiring processes of teachers. This function was held in Iguala in Guerro Mexico which is one of the most dangerous places in Mexico due to drug cartels and other reasons.
They were also planning to raise funds for a trip to Mexico City to commemorate the anniversary of the 1986 Tlatelolco massacre where large a number of students were killed by the security forces in the capital.
The Attack (1):
That day at 6pm, they headed out and were commandeering buses to get to Iguala. It was very common to steal or borrow buses, where they would take the bus, use it and bring it back to the bus owner.
The college didn’t have government funding so they weren't able to pay for the buses. Instead, they would make deals with bus drivers as it was necessary for them to get to the protest for the purpose of education and fund raising. The authorities tolerated these practices and the bus drivers were instructed to stay with buses to ensure safe return.
They loaded up 2 buses that were previously commandeered. One of them was to sit on a highway across from a restaurant called La Palma and the other one sat near a toll booth closer to Iguala.
They spoke to the driver who agreed to take them as long as he could take a quick stop at the Iguala central bus station to drop off previous passengers, but when they got to the central bus station, he left to speak with security guards. When the students tried to get out, they found out that they were locked inside the bus.
At 9:15 pm students from other buses showed up there to help their friends out by breaking the windows of the bus. They managed to commandeer another 3 buses, bringing them up to 5 buses and at 9:30pm they left to go to their protest.
3 buses went to Iguala northern beltway and 2 went towards south direction. At the time, they didn’t know that they were being tracked by the state police, federal police and Mexican army since 6pm. Police cars were following the 3 buses going north when one police truck cut them off to force one bus to stop.
Some students got out of the bus to physically move the police truck to make way.
As a result, police started firing warning shots in the sky and in return students retaliated by throwing rocks and smashing the windows of the police truck.
After moving the police truck a little, the students then got back in the bus and drove around the truck. Police were following them and actually fired shots at the bus.
At this point in time, 10 police vehicles were chasing them and then another police truck cut the bus off to stop it. Students got out again to move the truck, but this time the police actually started to shoot bullets at the students who got out.
One student, Aldo Gutierrez was shot in the head and left there, brain dead and bleeding in the middle of the street. Two other students were injured as well. Other students ran and hid behind the bus to take shelter because police were still shooting at them. It was found later that there was a total of 30 bullet holes found in the side of the bus.
Students were yelling at the police “Why are you shooting if we’re unarmed?” and “We don’t have any weapons sir”, but police did not care and kept shooting at them. The students were begging the police to stop aiming at them and to call an ambulance for their friend Aldo.
At 9:48 pm, a call was made to an emergency dispatch number and an ambulance came to take the 3 students who were injured and another student who suffered from an asthma attack to a nearby hospital.
Around 10:50pm, officers forced the students who were hiding in the bus at gunpoint to get out of the bus along with the bus driver. The police made them lie on the ground with their hands on their heads, after which they were loaded into 6-7 police trucks with hoods on their heads.
Ever since then, those students were never seen again.
The Attack (2) :
One of the buses that were headed south was also stopped at 9:40 pm, tear gas bombs were thrown at them and bullet shots were fired as well. The police took the students from the bus and loaded them into patrol trucks. These students along with the ones from the northern bus were never seen again.
All the students taken from the northern and southern buses into patrol trucks, were the 43 students who went missing in Iguala. This incident was later known famously as the Iguala mass kidnapping.
Officers also intercepted a 3rd bus, but the students there had already heard what was happening to the others. So, they were prepared beforehand. There were 14 students on the bus and were asked to get off the bus at gunpoint. As they began to get off, they started to run into the woods nearby and managed to find shelter.
At 11:15pm police also stopped a bus that was carrying a high school soccer team, 11 kilometers from Iguala thinking it was another one of the Ayotzinapa buses.
Armed men intercepted the bus causing the bus driver to lose control of the vehicle. The bus ended up falling to its side and passengers got to the ground because the police was shooting at them.
The high school students kept yelling that they were just soccer players coming from a match and were unarmed. The officers did not listen and ended up killing the bus driver and one high school student who was only 15 years old. They injured 8 other players as well.
They also shot and killed a 40 year old woman who was just riding in a taxi nearby, she didn't have anything to do with this whole fiasco.
Over 60 shell casings were found at the scene and some of them were actually high-powered assault rifle rounds. At around the same time the high school soccer bus was attacked, the surviving Ayotizinapa buses that were heading north, started to gather in the street around the crime scene. Crime journalists started showing up and started to seal off the area to preserve any evidence. It turned into a little press conference.
Two white utility vehicles and a black car were seen passing by and taking photos of the entire thing. Sources said they were police vehicles.
15 minutes later the vehicles returned and open fired on everybody at the impromptu press conference. They killed 2 people and injured numerous others. Two dozen students ran to a nearby medical clinic but the woman inside refused to help.
They begged for an ambulance but the frightened clinic woman called the 27th battalion police instead. The police forced the students to get on the ground, take off their shirts and get their pockets checked.
Aftermath :
Due to this incident, 6 people were killed, more than 25 were at injured and 43 were never seen again. Along with that, 5 buses, 6 cars and 1 motorcycle were wrecked and 195 shell casings were found on the scenes.
The next morning, a student named Julio Cesar Mondragon was found splayed out on his back on a patch of dirt, his eyes and skin from his face were removed. His shirt had been pulled up which revealed numerous bruises, his skull had been fractured, his organs had all been ruptured which indicated that this has something to do with a gang.
It is still unclear till this day as to what happened to these 43 missing students.
Theories:
The first theory is that the mayor of Iguala and his wife were behind this whole fiasco.
In 2010 federal authorities investigated him and his wife for illegal enrichment but no charges were ever filed.
Iguala residents also say that his 2012 elections took intimidation and fear to a whole new level. In less than a year into his term, well know political activist Arturo Hernandez was allegedly killed by him but that investigation was brought to a halt and he got off yet again. His wife Maria is believed to have organized the entire event that the students were going to protest. The event was unofficially going to kick off the mayor's election campaign.
Maria herself was known to be related to well-known cartel members.
Two of her brothers were high level operators of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel. The Attorney General also revealed that not only was she related to them but they also had monetary incentive to be friendly with the gangs.
One of the leaders of Guerreros Unidos drug cartel (known for kidnapping, extortion and drug trafficking) said that the mayor's wife was the main operator of the criminal activities in the town and her husband got a payout of 2-3 million pesos every once in a while, as a bribe.
According to the govt he was behind the act because he thought the students would disrupt his event so he decided to teach them a lesson. It was theorized that he got the police to kidnap and hand them over to the Guerreros Unidos.
In a later interview on 29th September, the mayor claimed that he had no knowledge of the attacks and didn’t even find out until his assistant told him. He said that he was at the event the whole day and had an after party later on.
After the interview the President of the mayor’s political party (Party of the Democratic Revolution) asked him resign.
When the federal agents raided the mayor’s house, they found out that he and his family had fled and were nowhere to be found. Next month, they were found and arrested for the murder of the activist. The arrest was not related to the Iguala mass kidnapping and murders.
2. Guerreros Unidos kidnapped them thinking that they were a rival gang or the students had angered them in some way by not paying extortion money.
3. Guerreros Unidos did this on instructions of the mayor and his wife and pretended it was a rival gang. Government claims that people from Iguala and the police took them to a place and handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos.
Justice :
22 of the officers that were involved in the actual shootouts were arrested in connection with the disappearances and murders.
The investigation concluded with the fact that 16 of the 22 officers had been using firearms against the students.
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