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Possible Burial Site of Missing Mexican Students Is Searched Frustration in Search for 43 Students in Mexico
(about 9 hours later)
MEXICO CITY — Mexican investigators combed a desolate site near a garbage dump on Tuesday in the search for the bodies of 43 students missing since they were arrested by the police in the southern city of Iguala a month ago. COCULA, Mexico — Mexican investigators planted red flags to mark suspected human remains Tuesday as they combed through a garbage-choked ravine in the search for 43 students missing since they were arrested by the police in the southern city of Iguala a month ago.
The announcement on Monday of a possible burial site opened the possibility that authorities may have found the bodies of the students, all young men, who authorities have said were handed over to a local drug gang after their arrests. Yet as the second day of the search outside this forested mountain town closed, there was no sign that the government was any closer to finding the students.
Officials confirmed to local news media that human remains had been found at the site outside the town of Cocula, about 30 minutes from Iguala, but did not specify the number of bodies or their condition. On Monday, Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam had raised hopes that the dump outside Cocula might hold a clue to the fate of the students, all young men, who the authorities said were handed over to a local drug gang after their arrests.
Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam told a news conference on Monday that four suspected members of the gang, known as Guerreros Unidos, had been arrested and had provided authorities with the information that had led them to Cocula. He invited reporters to go to the site on Tuesday. Four suspected members of the gang, known as Guerreros Unidos, had been arrested and provided information on Monday that led them to Cocula, about 30 minutes from Iguala.
“We have the first arrests of whose who have confessed that they participated the night of September 26 and the early morning of September 27 in the disappearance and the fate” of the students, Mr. Murillo Karam said. A day later, Mr. Murillo Karam said that it was too early to speculate on what the Cocula dump might hold. “We cannot do anything while we don’t have full and clear evidence of what happened here,” he said on Tuesday.
The arrests bring to 56 the number of people who have been detained over the students’ disappearance, including police officers from Iguala and Cocula and gang members, among them the man whom authorities describe as the leader of Guerreros Unidos, Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado. The arrests bring to 56 the number of people who have been detained over the students’ disappearance on Sept. 26, including police officers from Iguala and Cocula and gang members.
The disappearance of the students has created a political dilemma for President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has sought to play down the issue of drug violence while he has tried to focus on the economy. On Tuesday, residents milled around Cocula’s main square, watching police and soldiers drive through. Jorge Luis Mendoza, 25, a farmer, said that the Guerreros Unidos appeared to have control of the region.
But the search for the students has consumed Mexican public opinion. Their disappearance has set off violent protests in the state of Guerrero, where they were arrested, and demonstrations in much of the country, including a march by tens of thousands of people in Mexico City last week. “For a year now, violence and crime have really spiked,” he said. “People cannot travel the roads by night because you always see gunmen on the roads, armed people just watching you.”
The unrest forced the resignation of Guerrero’s governor, Ángel Aguirre, last week. On Monday, the interim governor, Rogelio Ortega Martínez, a sociologist and former university administrator with a background in the state’s leftist movements, met with Mr. Peña Nieto. Still, even in a town that had become inured to kidnappings, “we are not used to the police or narcos killing students,” he said. “That’s just ugly.”
Although Mexico’s drug war over the past eight years has produced many massacres that have horrified the country, the students’ disappearance has resonated particularly strongly because the investigation has revealed how effectively the drug gang had penetrated local government. The disappearance has created a political dilemma for President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has sought to play down the issue of drug violence while he tries to focus on the economy.
Yet the search for the students has consumed Mexican public opinion. Their disappearance has set off violent protests in the state of Guerrero, where they were arrested, and demonstrations in much of the country.
The unrest forced the resignation of Guerrero’s governor, Ángel Aguirre, last week. On Tuesday, the government’s security cabinet flew to Acapulco, the state’s largest city, to meet with the interim governor, Rogelio Ortega Martínez, a sociologist and former university administrator with a background in the state’s leftist movements.
Mr. Peña Nieto was scheduled to meet with relatives of the missing students in Mexico City on Wednesday. Although Mexico’s drug war over the past eight years has produced many massacres that have horrified the country, this case has resonated particularly strongly because the investigation has revealed how effectively the gang penetrated the local government.
Mr. Murillo Karam said last week that Guerreros Unidos had infiltrated Iguala’s city hall and that the mayor’s wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa, had been identified as the gang’s main contact.Mr. Murillo Karam said last week that Guerreros Unidos had infiltrated Iguala’s city hall and that the mayor’s wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa, had been identified as the gang’s main contact.
Both the mayor, José Luis Abarca, and Ms. Pineda Villa are accused of ordering police officers to confront the students on the night of Sept. 26, provoking violent clashes that killed six people, including three students. The couple disappeared a few days later and are considered fugitives. Both the mayor, José Luis Abarca, and Ms. Pineda Villa are considered fugitives.
Mr. Murillo Karam said officials believed that the students, who had attended a teachers’ college and had clashed with the mayor before, were en route to Iguala to disrupt a speech by Ms. Pineda Villa, who was in charge of the city’s social programs.
Since the students went missing, the authorities and residents have searched the hills around Iguala and have found 38 bodies so far in nine makeshift graves. Preliminary tests have shown they were not the remains of the students — raising even more angst about killings in the country — but authorities are waiting for more definitive tests.