\n Protesters smashed open a door to Mexico's presidential palace on Wednesday as they demanded justice for 43 students whose murky disappearance nearly a decade ago shocked the country.\n<\/p>\n
\n A few dozen demonstrators rammed a pick-up truck into an entrance to the National Palace while President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was holding a press conference inside, television images showed.\n<\/p>\n
\n A handful of hooded protesters were then seen entering and security personnel responded to repel them, using what was thought to be pepper spray, before calm was restored.\n<\/p>\n
\n Presidential spokesman Jesus Ramirez said the demonstrators had only reached an entrance area and not the main building.\n<\/p>\n
\n Lopez Obrador described the incident as a \"very clear plan of provocation.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"They would like us to respond violently. We're not going to do it. We're not repressors,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The door will be fixed and there's no problem,\" Lopez Obrador added calmly, shortly before concluding his news conference at the usual time.\n<\/p>\n
\n Several windows were smashed and graffiti sprayed on the outer walls of the palace, including the words \"We just want a dialogue,\" according to an AFP reporter.\n<\/p>\n
\n Although the wooden doors of the National Palace, built during the Spanish colonial period, had previously been targeted by other protesters, it is believed to be the first time in recent years that one has been broken open.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"They hit the door first with a metal security fence, but when they saw that they did not make a dent in the thick wood they took an electricity company truck,\" said Miguel Hernandez, a 52-year-old shoe shiner who witnessed the incident.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"With that truck they managed to break down the door,\" he added.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Human rights atrocity -\n<\/p>\n
\n Relatives of the missing students and supporters have carried out various protests in Mexico City, including a sit-in outside the palace demanding to meet with Lopez Obrador, who lives and works there.\n<\/p>\n
\n The president said a senior interior ministry official would receive them instead.\n<\/p>\n
\n The 2014 case of the students from a teacher training college in the violent southern state of Guerrero is considered to be one of the country's worst human rights atrocities.\n<\/p>\n
\n They had commandeered buses to travel to a demonstration in Mexico City, then went missing.\n<\/p>\n
\n Investigators believe they were kidnapped by a drug cartel in collusion with corrupt police, although exactly what happened to them is unclear.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 2022, a truth commission set up by the government branded the case a \"state crime\" and said the military shared responsibility, either directly or through negligence.\n<\/p>\n
\n One theory it put forward was that cartel members targeted the students because they had unknowingly taken a bus with drugs hidden inside.\n<\/p>\n
\n Arrest warrants were issued for dozens of suspects, including military personnel and a former attorney general who led a controversial investigation into the mass disappearance.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last year, the commission found that the army was aware of what was happening and had real-time information about the kidnapping and disappearance.\n<\/p>\n
\n So far, the remains of only three of the victims have been identified.\n<\/p>\n
\n More than 100,000 people have gone missing in Mexico, mostly since the government of then-president Felipe Calderon deployed the military to fight drug cartels in 2006.\n<\/p>\n
\n Since then, a spiral of violence has left nearly 450,000 people dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Protesters smashed open a door to Mexico's presidential palace on Wednesday as they demanded justice for 43 students whose murky disappearance nearly a decade ago shocked the country. A few dozen demonstrators rammed a pick-up truck into an entrance to the National Palace while President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was holding a press conference inside, […]<\/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-129240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n