Mexican authorities are working on identifying 28 badly burned and dismembered bodies retrieved from a mass grave near the town of Iguala. The mass grave is located near the area where 43 protesting students went missing last month, after an altercation with the police. During the fights, six people were killed and another 17 injured. The policemen and some unidentified gunmen opened fire at the protesting students and on a bus in the town of Iguala. Twenty-two officers are being held in connection with the shooting. The students were from the Avotzianapa teacher training college and they were protesting against discriminatory hiring practices for teachers who favor students from cities over students from rural areas. Members of the student union declared that after the protests were over, they tried to get rides back to their college on local busses.
Inaky Bianco, the chief prosecutor of Guerrero stated that the identification of the 28 recently retrieved bodies from the Iguala mass grave might take at least two weeks. People who had witnessed the incident said that the survivors of last month’s clash, mostly young trainee teachers were gathered into police cars and vans. Some of these student trainee teachers feared for their lives even days after the incident and went on to hide in their relatives’ homes. Inaky Bianco said that those who were detained during the incident stated stat 17 students had been killed at the site of the mass grave. However, he said that their stories have not yet been confirmed as true.
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The students were holding the protest over the issue of job discrimination against rural teachers. The town of Iguala lies at 120 miles south from Mexico City. The mass grave was discovered on Saturday, after the police received an anonymous tip. There had been arrest warrants issued for the mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Albarca, as well as for his security chief. The two men are considered fugitives from justice and they are believed to have links with criminal gangs operating in Guerrero state. This incident seems to highlight the connection between state officials and organized criminal groups, a problem which seems to affect the entire country even more.