Missing students' plight triggers human rights outrage in Mexico

Demanding answers about the fate of 43 missing students, protesters marched in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero on Tuesday, where the trainee teachers disappeared after deadly clashes with police in September.

Mexico’s Human Rights Commission also wants answers over the case in which dozens of police have been arrested amid claims the students may have been killed by officers in league with gang members.

Denouncing what he called “the margin of impunity” in the local administration, Commission President Raul Plascencia said:

“We can see clearly that basic law simply doesn’t work, that public institutions are not working, either in preventing crimes or even in managing to track down those behind the 43 forced disappearances and 6 murders that were shamelessly committed on September 26.”

It would not be the first time that local Mexican security forces had been linked to violence, cover-ups and connections with crime groups.

Central government is now offering a reward equivalent to some 87,000 euros for information on the students’ disappearance.