\n Thousands of Mexicans marched on Monday demanding justice on the eighth anniversary of the disappearance of 43 students, after investigators branded the atrocity a \"state crime\" involving the military and other institutions.\n<\/p>\n
\n President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador urged protesters to rally peacefully in memory of the victims of a tragedy that shocked the nation and prompted international indignation.\n<\/p>\n
\n Relatives, students and other demonstrators advanced through the heart of Mexico City chanting slogans such as \"alive they took them, alive we want them!\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Some carried signs reading: \"It was the army.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We demand that the military be investigated, that they be punished,\" said Blanca Nava, the mother of one of the students.\n<\/p>\n
\n Lopez Obrador's appeal came after several dozen members of the security forces were injured on Friday in clashes with protesters hurling rocks and homemade explosive devices at a Mexican military base.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The only thing is to avoid violence,\" Lopez Obrador told reporters, declaring Monday a day of national mourning.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It's not about throwing stones or Molotov cocktails. It's about protesting peacefully,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Monday's march appeared to be mostly peaceful, with only occasional skirmishes between protesters and the police.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Unsolved crime -\n<\/p>\n
\n The 43 teaching students had commandeered buses in the southern state of Guerrero to travel to a demonstration in Mexico City before they went missing.\n<\/p>\n
\n Investigators say they were detained by corrupt police and handed over to a drug cartel that mistook them for members of a rival gang, but exactly what happened to them is disputed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last month, a truth commission tasked by Lopez Obrador's government to investigate the atrocity declared the case a \"state crime\" involving agents of various institutions.\n<\/p>\n
\n It said that military personnel bore \"clear responsibility,\" either directly or through negligence.\n<\/p>\n
\n Arrest warrants have been issued for more than 80 suspects, including military personnel, police officers and cartel members.\n<\/p>\n
\n But a lawyer for the victims' families, Vidulfo Rosales, told reporters that prosecutors had withdrawn at least 20 of the warrants.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"That's why there were strenuous demands for answers,\" he said, referring to Friday's protest violence, which came despite a number of high-profile detentions in the case.\n<\/p>\n
\n Former attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam, who led a controversial investigation into the mass disappearance, was arrested last month on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice.\n<\/p>\n
\n This month an army general and two other military personnel were also detained.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to an official report presented in 2015 by the government of then-president Enrique Pena Nieto, cartel members killed the students and incinerated their remains at a garbage dump.\n<\/p>\n
\n Those conclusions were rejected by relatives, independent experts and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.\n<\/p>\n
\n So far, the remains of only three victims have been identified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thousands of Mexicans marched on Monday demanding justice on the eighth anniversary of the disappearance of 43 students, after investigators branded the atrocity a \"state crime\" involving the military and other institutions. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador urged protesters to rally peacefully in memory of the victims of a tragedy that shocked the nation and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-107053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n