What happened to Mexico's 43 missing students? Devastated families demand answers 10 years after pupils vanished

Classmates protesting the disappearance of 43 students from a Mexican rural teacher’s college attacked a government building during a demonstration Monday.

The group joined the relatives of the missing students for a protest in Mexico City ahead of the 10th anniversary of their disappearance in a country where more than 115,000 people have been registered missing.

Students were seen masking their identities by covering their faces and hurling Molotov cocktail and other objects at the Interior Ministry building.

The college students who vanished attended the Rural Normal School at Ayotzinapa in Iguala, a town in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, and were attacked by security forces tied to Guerrero Unidos, a local drug gang, on September 26, 2014.

The students were traveling in five buses to Mexico City to attend the anniversary of almost 300 people who were massacred at a student protest in 1968.

The administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto at the time said the students were mistaken for members of a rival gang and that the that the Guerreros Unidos had kidnapped and killed them. They said that the gang burned their bodies in a fire and dumped their bodies in a river.

However, an investigation by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the successor Attorney Genera’s Office and a Truth Commission created in 2019, found that the fire at a dump was a lie based on false statements that were produced under torture and evidence that was tampered.

Investigators would later learn that an enormous operation was put in motion that night involving members of Guerreros Unidos, but also local, state and federal police.

They found that the army was aware of everything that was happening because it had a base in Iguala, soldiers in the streets and spies among the students.

Investigators said members of the army were involved with the gang in smuggling heroin from the mountains of Guerrero on buses to the United States. Prosecutors said the decision to hide the truth was taken at the highest levels of government.

Authorities have more than 100 people under arrest and dozens have been charged. Yet on one has been convicted of any crime.

At the end of the previous administration, Mexican courts determined that the investigation was plagued by errors and manipulation. There were dozens of cases of torture.

Those abuses and missteps led to many of those involved being released. Some have been arrested again under the current administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who in the past has promised to help the families get justice.

The highest-ranking person charged is former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam, who is accused of torture, forced disappearance and obstruction of justice.

There are also 16 soldiers, most of whom are awaiting trial on house arrest, which infuriates the students’ families.

But as evidence continued to stack up and pointed toward the military’s involvement in the attack and cover-up, the López Obrador administration’s tone changed.

The president had ordered the military to open its archives to investigators. That didn’t happen.

Instead, López Obrador shifted more power and responsibility to the military than any president in recent history.

The prosecutor leading the investigation, Omar García Trejo, was suddenly demoted after he sought arrest orders for two dozen soldiers. He was replaced by someone unfamiliar with the case.

There was also growing political pressure to show results, said Santiago Aguirre, one of the families´ lawyers. The administration presented some evidence that did not appear to come from reliable sources and the government's searches turned slipshod.

Their lawyers point out key arrests are still lacking, among them the man who led the investigation during the Peña Nieto administration, Tomás Zerón.

In videos, Zerón is seen interrogating and threatening prisoners. He sought refuge in Israel, which has not agreed to extradite him despite Mexico’s request.

They also say they want to see military intelligence records from that night that they still haven't had access to. 

They have appealed for more cooperation from the United States government, which has prosecuted members of Guerreros Unidos in drug trafficking cases that also revealed their ties to the military.