Ayotzinapa

On the night of September 26th, 2014, in Iguala, Guerrero, one of the most emblematic episodes of violation of human rights took place in the recent history of our country.

The events happened when a group of students from the Rural Normal School Raúl Isidro Burgos of Ayotzinapa, between 17 and 25 years old, went to the city of Iguala, Guerrero, located in that same state, with the purpose of “taking” buses required to participate in the commemoration of October 2, which keeps alive every year in Mexico the memory of that repression against students occurred in 1968. Although the retention and temporary use of buses by students to carry out their activities had been usual in Guerrero and even had the tacit endorsement of companies and authorities, on September 26th the response of the authorities was not the ordinary: Municipal Police of Iguala opened fire on students to prevent them from leaving the city with the buses. In this way, aided by other corporations and by civilians, the police managed to block the passage of five buses -three that passed through a central street and two that did it by a peripheral street.- In these two scenarios, 43 students were arrested and then, disappeared. Later that night, the aggressions against the students and against the population in general continued, not only by state agents but also by civilians who, as was later shown, were part of the structure of a criminal organization strongly imbricated with the State instances present in that area of ​​Guerrero, called Guerreros Unidos.

The balance of the bloody night of Iguala was brutal: 43 young students who are still missing; 6 people executed, including 3 normalistas (education students), including the case of a young man whose body appeared the next day in an uninhabited area with clear signs of torture; at least 40 people were injured, counting two students that resulted with serious and permanent damage to their health. In total, more than 180 people were direct victims of human rights violations that night and about 700 people were indirect victims, considering the relatives of the aggrieved.

Despite the truth and justice search process initiated by the relatives of the disappeared and the execution victims, the obstruction of the investigation by the Authorities has prevented the truth of the events that occurred to the Ayotzinapa normalistas on September 26th and 27th, 2014, to be known by families and by the whole society; and therefore, not all those responsible for these events have been investigated, prosecuted and punished.