Incoming Mexico government promises probe of 43 students' disappearance

MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s next government will investigate the 2014 disappearance of 43 students, aided by the United Nations and other rights groups, President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told parents of the students on Wednesday.



The abduction and suspected massacre of the students, who were studying at a teachers’ training college in Ayotzinapa in the southwestern state of Guerrero, precipitated one of the worst crises of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s tenure.

A federal tribunal in June ordered the creation of the Investigatory Commission for Truth and Justice, to be made up of victims’ representatives, the National Human Rights Commission and the Federal Public Ministry.

The current government has so far not given details on how this will occur.

At an emotional gathering of representatives and parents bearing photos of the trainee-teachers on the fourth anniversary of the students’ disappearance, Lopez Obrador said that if the commission has not been set up by the time he takes office on December 1, he will create it himself.



Lopez Obrador added that the commission would seek help from the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

According to the government’s version of events, the trainee-teachers were rounded up by corrupt police and handed over to a gang that killed them and burned their bodies in a nearby dump.

But experts appointed by the IACHR said in a report in 2015 that account was riddled with errors.