Mexico is still tortured by the Ayotzinapa affair, the disappearance of 43 normaliens students which took place on the night of September 26 to 27, 2014 in Iguala in Guerrero. Almost ten years after the events, the extremely complex affair still includes large parts of shadows. The students’ bodies were never found and although there is no indication that they may be alive, families continue to search for them. Since Thursday January 4, they have had access to the investigation file for two months.
2 mins
With our correspondent in Mexico, Gwendolina Duval
The families of the 43 missing young people are demanding access to at least 800 military documents which have so far been missing from the file. They also demand that the delivery of these files be a condition for the opening of the investigation file. These are the archives of the Regional Intelligence Fusion Center, a military surveillance organization which was operational in September 2014 in Iguala, at the time of the events.
This request from families is not new, we know that these documents exist in particular thanks to the group of independent experts who were responsible for investigating Aytozinapa until June 2023.
Until then, the government has offered families the opportunity to collect the documents themselves directly from military installations. But the parents of the missing refuse. In a press release, they denounce a farce, a trap in the sense that the army has continued to obstruct the truth. The State has therefore given two months to the families to study the investigation file, so the latter are asking for help: the possibility of giving this access also to independent international experts who already know the case for a technical examination and impartial.
Over the past two years, the investigation has undergone several twists and turns: the attorney general of the republic at the time, who had developed a false version of the facts, was arrested. A report highlighted that it was a state crime involving the police and the army. Soldiers were imprisoned and then released. The group of independent experts charged with investigating completed its mission last June by denouncing the numerous obstacles posed by the army in obtaining the truth. Although the current government has taken control and promised to lift the veil on the affair, its position remains ambiguous. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asked the Mexican government last November to break the pact of silence around Ayotzinapa.