Mexican Military Under Fire for Alleged Obstruction in Student Disappearance Case

Independent panel withdraws from the case

On Thursday, the United Nations’ human rights commissioner accused Mexico’s military of obstructing an expert investigation into the disappearance of 43 students in a tragic incident that deeply shook the country nearly nine years ago.

Last August, a report from a Mexican truth commission revealed that the students, who vanished while on their way to a demonstration in Mexico City, had fallen victim to “state-sponsored crime.”

The students, who attended a teachers’ college in Ayotzinapa, were intercepted by local police and federal military forces while passing through the southwestern city of Iguala in September 2014. According to survivors among the original group of 100 students, police officers and soldiers suddenly opened fire, leading to the disappearance of dozens of students on the buses that night, with their fate remaining unknown.

The expert panel (GIEI) assigned to investigate the incident recently stated that they did not receive sufficient access to information, ultimately leading them to withdraw from the investigation and leave Mexico.

UN human rights office expresses regret

In response to the panel’s report, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico released a statement on Thursday, accusing Mexico’s Armed Forces of not providing all the information requested by the independent panel investigating the disappearance. The OHCHR statement expressed regret that, despite the federal government’s expressed political will, the Armed Forces did not fully cooperate in providing the necessary information to clarify the facts of the forced disappearance of the students and other serious human rights violations.

Mexico’s President defends military cooperation

Mexico’s President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, however, contested these claims and defended the level of cooperation from the military. During a press conference on Thursday, he asserted that progress in the investigation was made due to the cooperation of the navy and the army. He emphasized that the priority remains in continuing the search for the missing students and highlighted that 115 individuals, including two generals and a former prosecutor, have already been detained in connection with the case.