The violence in Iguala, Mexico began on September 26. Three vehicles carrying students and soccer players were on their way to a protest in the southern Mexican city when police officers brandishing firearms attacked the convoy, firing indiscriminately through the windows and sides of the vehicles. Six people were killed in the initial attack, including three students. One survivor, Omar Sanchez, described to CNN en Espanol what the experience was like.
We were just watching a movie and we saw the bullets come in and then it was like we were going off a cliff and the bus tipped over. And it was then that they started firing at us with machine guns. It sounded so ugly, the gunshots and my teammates screaming, ‘Help, leave us alone, we are injured.’ A teacher said, ‘you have already blinded me, please, we are the team from Chilpancingo.’
When a teacher refused to open a door to allow access to the police officers, the squad opened fire again, ordering them to exit their vehicles or risk being killed on the street. Then, a mystery began: the 43 surviving students vanished.
Who Ordered The Attack?
An investigation by state officials began almost immediately. A state-run website was setup with pictures of all the students offering 1 million pesos for information on their whereabouts. Within a week, 30 people were detained, 22 of them police officers. At this time, at least 60 people are in police custody, 17 of them gang members, the rest, members of police.
Guerrero state Gov. Angel Aguirre took to Twitter on October 4th to try to prevent further protests or violence in his state.
To the family and friends of those who were savagely massacred, I offer all my solidarity and support. It would be highly condemnable, those who want to take advantage or politically profit from a situation like the one that today overwhelms and saddens us.
On the week of October 20th, the investigation broke wide open. Attorney General Jesus Murillo announced that the order for the police to confront the students and soccer players came directly from former Mayor Jose Luis Abarca’s office. “The order to confront those people came from the police department’s command center, straight from A-5, code name used to identify the Iguala mayor.”
Through interrogations with the detained suspects, Murillo found that Mayor Abarca, along with his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, and Police Chief Felipe Flores Velásquez, organized the attacks. On October 22, arrest warrants were issued for all three. There was only one problem. The former mayor and his wife went on the run merely hours after the kidnappings.
Attorney General Murillo also found out one other piece of information through the interrogations: the police handed over the students to a notorious gang called Guerreros Unidos.
Who Are Guerreros Unidos?
It’s hard to find solid information on GU, which translates to Unified Warriors. The gang may have began back in 2011 after La Familia Michoacana — a large group of terrifying drug-traffickers — disbanded after the killings of their leaders. Since then, GU has continued the trafficking of cocaine, heroin, and other drugs, with much of it making its way to the US.
In 2012, in order to further distance itself from LFM, GU displayed 10 severed heads in a public area (warning: graphic image) along with this message:
This is what will happen to all those who continue supporting the “FM” f*cking sh*t kidnappers, don’t continue living off the people, your father is here already, kidnappers and f*cking extortionists. Atte. “GUERRERO UNIDOS
Since then, GU has acquired much of the territory and power of their former parent organization. Through the Iguala kidnapping case, authorities have found that GU have also infiltrated many of their surrounding police organizations, which is what led them to discover that the gang worked with the mayor’s office in abducting the students. On October 14th, one of the leaders of the GU, Benjamin Mondragon Pereda, killed himself following a fire fight with police — he was surrounded with no way out. A few days later, another leader of the cartel, Sidronio Casarrubias, was captured by police.
Where Are The Students?
Soon after the students vanished, a mass grave filled with 28 bodies was discovered along a desolate road in Mexico’s Guerrero state. But, testing results concluded that none of the victims matched the student’s descriptions.
A priest and activist in the area contacted authorities, and described to them what he was told — by sources close to the incident — exactly happened to the students. ”Some who were wounded but still alive, with others who were already dead … were put on top of firewood and set on fire with diesel.”
The investigation in finding the 43 missing students continues. The only strain of good news to occur, since the kidnappings, happened this morning at 4:00am: former mayor Jose Luis Abarca, and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda — the architects of this disaster — were captured and finally taken into custody.
For the families of those missing, though, no good news may ever come of this incident.