Steph Deschamps / September 24, 2022
Hundreds of protesters clashed with law enforcement on Friday outside a military site in Mexico City, demanding justice again in the case of the 43 students who disappeared just eight years ago in Mexico.
Cries of "murderers" were heard as some threw homemade explosive devices inside the Military Camp 1, three days before the anniversary of the disappearance of the "43" from Ayotzinapa and after new revelations implicating the army.
Demonstrators tore down gates and briefly entered the military compound, in the third day of clashes after a demonstration on Wednesday in front of the Israeli embassy and a clash with police on Thursday in front of the Attorney General's Office that left 13 security personnel injured.
The police pushed them back with jets of water without causing any injuries, AFP journalists noted. Stones were also thrown from inside.
The same morning, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who gave a new impetus in the investigation, had condemned the violence.
The students disappeared on the night of September 26-27, 2014, in Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero, where they had gone to "commandeer" buses to protest in Mexico City.
According to the official investigation, the 43 youths were arrested by local police in collusion with the Guerreros Unidos gang and then shot and burned in a landfill for reasons that remain unclear. Only the remains of three of them have been identified.
President López Obrador has set up a "Commission for the Ayotzinapa Truth", which says the Mexican military bears some responsibility for this crime, one of the worst cases of human rights violations in Mexico, where some 100,000 people have disappeared.
Former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam was arrested after the commission's report was released in mid-August. He is to be tried in a criminal court for the disappearance of 43 students.
Mexico is asking Israel to extradite Tomas Zeron, former head of the Criminal Investigation Agency during the time of former President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018). He is accused of manipulating evidence the case.