Human Remains Found in Clandestine Graves as Violence Continues in Mexico

The families accompanied by community policemen found three bodies Wednesday and five others Thursday in the graves discovered at the spot known as La Laguna, a spokesperson for the Union of People and Organizations, UPOEG told Efe.

Since the 43 students went missing on Sep. 26 in Iguala, UPOEG, a community-based organization that started in January 2013 to perform police functions, assists residents in search of missing relatives.

So far, they have found about 40 human remains in Iguala but apparently do not match with the students of Normal Ayotzinapa who disappeared at the hands of Iguala police officers and members of the criminal cartel United Warriors.

Mexico’s Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio has said that parents of the 43 students, who went missing from southern Mexico in September, would only have access to the military base at Iguala, as per their petition.

The minister said Thursday that the government invited the National Human Rights Commission president Luis Raul Gonzalez to visit the 27th infantry battalion in Iguala, in the wake of allegations of the army’s involvement in the disappearances.

Following a meeting with the families Tuesday the public prosecutor’s office said that the military bases would be open to all citizens, but that it had to be done in an orderly manner and with due respect to the institutions.

After the announcement, the families said that they would search all the military bases in Mexico, while their lawyer Vidulfo Rosales said that they would decide on the military stations they would search.

The families asked the government to investigate the role of the army in the incidents that occurred on Sept. 26 in Iguala, in which many students from the Ayotzinapa teachers training school said that soldiers had also taken part.

“We are not accusing the military; we are not saying that they are responsible. Simply that there are elements that implicate them and it is the legal obligation of the government to investigate it,” said Rosales.

“There is absolutely no proof that could link our armed forces to those events,” Osorio responded, adding that what was clear was the involvement of the local police and the municipal authorities and their links with organized criminal gangs.

On Sept. 26, 43 students were detained by police and handed over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, which killed them and burned the bodies to eliminate all traces of the victims, according to the official version of the events, which cites statements by suspects in the case.

The families of the missing students refuse to believe this version and have said that they would continue their search until the whereabouts of their children are confirmed or scientifically proven.