In a country where some 20,000 people are currently missing, the disappearance of 43 students has struck a nerve in Mexico like few other crimes in recent history. Daily protests are pressuring the government to find the missing students and end the kind of systematic corruption, and narco-infiltrations that many believe led to the tragedy.
The missing students were attacked by municipal policemen from Iguala on Sept. 26, after they had commandeered three buses in a protest. Investigators believe that policemen turned the students over to a drug-trafficking gang that had ties to Iguala’s mayor.
Gang members who have been arrested in connection with the case have told investigators that the students were executed and dumped in clandestine graves, which have yet to be found.