Ayotzinapa, Mexico, Sep 22 (EFE).- Students from all over Mexico gathered on Sunday at the Ayotzinapa rural teachers’ college to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of 43 young people from the school.
People hold signs with images at the ‘Raúl Isidro Burgos’ rural school to demonstrate 10 years after the disappearance of the 43 from Ayotzinapa, this Sunday in the city of Tixtla, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, 22 September 2024. EFE-EPA/David Guzman
«This government has not given a single solution throughout a decade. A fascist government that only takes care of repressing the students (…) Ayotzinapa means resistance for many, resistance to injustice, impunity and corruption,» said a students’ spokesperson.
Relatives and friends of the 43 Ayotzinapa students demonstrate at the memorial for their missing relatives, this Saturday, in the city of Chilpancingo in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, 21 September 2024. EFE-EPA/David Guzman
The Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School, the all-male college from which the 43 students disappeared in violent circumstances in 2014, on Sunday morning was decorated more vividly than is usual for the annual remembrance of the events that occurred a decade ago.
Students gather at the ‘Raul Isidro Burgos’ rural school to demonstrate 10 years after the disappearance of the 43 from Ayotzinapa, in the city of Tixtla, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, 22 September 2024. EFE-EPA/David Guzman
Representatives of the 17 rural teacher training schools in the country were summoned by the Federation of Socialist Peasant Students of Mexico, a group that represents the educational institutions.
One by one, the schools’ delegations marched before their peers gathered in the main square of Ayotzinapa, where they remained for hours, despite the intense sun and subsequent rain.
Indignation was the main tone of the proclamations that the students launched during the morning, with particular anger towards former president Enrique Peña Nieto, who was in power at the time.
His successor, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was also not spared from criticism, accused of «betraying» the families of the missing and abandoning the investigations in order to cover up the alleged involvement of the military.
The young people who took the microphone to address the crowd thoroughly criticized the authorities. Their denunciation of repression they said the police and military bodies carry out against students in states such as Guerrero where organized crime is high, was especially strong.
In front of relatives of the missing, who carried banners picturing the faces of their children, the college students shouted against the repression of some states and national leaders, who they accused of trying to buy the silence of parents and the end of protests.
«Those 43 families with empty hearts, those hearts cannot be filled with thousands of pesos, they can only be filled with the appearance, alive, of our 43 comrades,» exclaimed a young member of the Federation of Socialist Peasant Students.
The media was also a target of criticism in the speeches, with accusations of sensationalism and of wanting to «criminalize» the group by following the guidelines of the federal governments, so many of the students decided to speak with their faces covered, so as not to be identified.
No less important was the anger expressed over the death of Yanqui Kothan Gómez, a student from the normal school who was shot dead by a policeman on Mar. 7 on Guerrero highways during protests by the group.
After the event concluded with the singing of the anthem “Venceremos,” students and family members prepared to set off for Mexico City, where from Monday they will carry out protests to continue with the activities of the 10th anniversary. EFE
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