Thousands marched in Mexico City Saturday, demanding answers 12 years after 43 Ayotzinapa teacher trainees disappeared. President Claudia Sheinbaum is expected to present a progress report Monday after an exhaustive review of evidence by the attorney general's office.
Parents of the 43 led the procession to the capital's main square; protesters wore red, carried symbolic coffins and counted to 43. The trainees were traveling from Guerrero to a protest in Mexico City when local police stopped them in Iguala. Six died in an hours-long street clash, and the 43 later disappeared. Prosecutors initially said officers delivered them to drug cartel hitmen, who killed them, incinerated their bodies and dumped the remains in a river; independent human rights experts rejected the government's conclusion.
A former governor was arrested in August on accusations of deleting security footage from the Iguala crime scene; the former state attorney general was also arrested in 2022. More than 134,000 people are listed as disappeared in Mexico.
