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Relatives circulated pamphlets documenting the police investigation as well as the efforts made by the state on behalf of victims.
In the presence of the parents and family members of the 43 missing Ayotzinapan students, the Inter-American Human Rights Committee (IACHR) met with Mexican government officials to check its current progress in the case.
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The meeting convened Tuesday as members of the IACHR, the Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, the federal government and family members of the missing group arrived for a two-day session in Mexico City.
Relatives were given the floor and pamphlets were circulated by Christina Bautista, a mother of missing student Benjamin Ascencio Bautista, documenting the police investigation as well as the efforts made by the state on behalf of victims.
When questioned, federal officials were left speechless and requested an additional week to deliver their responses to the IACHR.
IACHR officials recommended the Central American government present their hypotheses and investigation results promptly with a subtle reminder of the approaching IACHR session and public hearing scheduled for March in Bogota, Colombia regarding the case.
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Before the committee, Government officials reaffirmed their commitment to the cause and its intention to exhaust all possible means to pursue investigations. As selfless as the statement seemed, after three and a half years of “searching”, families and human rights defenders have denounced their sub-par attempts to bring the students home.
Since their disappearance on September 26, 2014, from Iguala, Guerrero while en route to a controversial political protest, the government has become the prime suspect in light of the multitude of conflicting explanations issued by the state.
Official statements claim the students were arrested in Iguala by local authorities, who then delivered them to members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel which killed them and burned their bodies.
Experts say incinerating so many bodies in a dumpster without leaving a single trace, a claim made in official police reports, is technically impossible. Many of the expert witnesses have since joined family members in their push for justice.
This week’s meeting marks the human rights committee’s fifth official visit of the human rights association to the country in connection to the case and the main purpose behind the session was to assure recommendations made by Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) earlier this year had been implemented.
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