Parents Agonize After University Students’ Bodies Are Pulled From Mass Graves in Mexico

About 25,000 people have gone missing in Mexico since 2006, according to estimates by the government and human rights groups. Not clear is how many of them may have been victims of foul play. One of the most high-profile cases happened in September last year, when 43 students from a rural school in the southern state of Guerrero were hauled off by Iguala police believed to be working with a drug gang, causing national and international outrage. Parents of the missing students are seen here praying in front of an altar in Ayotzinapa, Mexico on Oct. 6, 2014. (Credit: Getty Images)

by: Los Angeles Times

Posted: Oct 6, 2014 / 03:58 PM PDT

Updated: Oct 6, 2014 / 03:58 PM PDT

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Angry, desperate parents on Monday demanded the safe return of 43 missing university students, even as officials indicated that at least some were probably killed and dumped in mass graves.

Twenty-eight bodies were recovered from a string of hidden pits over the weekend outside the city of Iguala in Mexico’s Guerrero state, and authorities were working to identify them through DNA and other tests.

The students, all of them freshmen, went missing Sept. 26 after they were attacked by Iguala police. They constituted about one-third of their school’s first-year class.

Many of the parents, who gathered at the university, refused to accept that their children were dead, and they blamed their disappearances on the state government.

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