A volunteer searching for bodies holds up a bone fragment at a site near the outskirts of Iguala, Mexico. A volunteer searching for bodies holds up a bone fragment at a site near the outskirts of Iguala, Mexico. Photo: New York Times
Iguala, Mexico: The search for 43 missing Mexican students who clashed with local police has instead unearthed a multitude of clandestine graves with unknown occupants right on the outskirts of the town of Iguala. The discoveries suggest that the crisis of organised crime in Mexico may be worse even than the authorities have acknowledged.
"Impunity is the main motivation for these numerous disappearances," said Alejandro Hope, a former Mexican intelligence official. "We must remember that only one in every five murder cases is solved in Mexico, whereas in the US it's two out of three cases."
Members of the farmers' brigades searching for the students - calling themselves "community police"  - said they were acting on a rash of tips from residents who do not trust the police.
Student activists carry portraits of the missing Mexican students during a march in Acapulco on Friday. Thousands took to the streets across the nation demanding greater government action to find the 43 missing trainee teachers. Photo: Reuters
It will take a couple of weeks for the authorities to test all of the new remains discovered in recent days. Prosecutors have confirmed that the corpses and remains in at least five mass graves uncovered so far are human, but they have not yet tied them to any of the students.
On Friday, acting again on tips from residents, the farmers' brigades searched a hilly trail, looking for caves in which residents believe bodies were left. Along the way, they found what appeared to be a safe house for a gang, littered with bottles, old clothes, candles and a portrait of Jesus Malverde, a gang icon.
Later, a local guide working with them got a threatening telephone call as he headed down the trail from the cave.
'Somebody knows': Eleucadio Ortega, whose son is among the 43 students who went missing weeks ago. 'Somebody knows': Eleucadio Ortega, whose son is among the 43 students who went missing weeks ago. Photo: New York Times
"Stop going up there," the voice said over and over before hanging up, the man said.
The school the students attended, the Escuela Normal Rural Raul Isidro Burgos, is a teachers' college with radical roots, steeped in revolutionary ferment and slogans.
The students had been organising an October 2 protest against cuts to their state-financed school, but they appear to have gotten into a skirmish with the police when they tried to steal buses to travel to and from the demonstration, human rights groups said.
Eleucadio Ortega, a father of one of the students, said his gut tightened with each report of a grave being found. In the days after his son, Mauricio Ortega, went missing, he searched parts of Iguala with other parents. But they found the effort futile and believe that only informants in the criminal world can provide real leads.
He wonders if somehow the students got mistaken for any number of groups in conflict in the state, including a range of guerrilla groups and gangs. But, he said, his son was simply a peasant farmer who wanted to be a teacher to get ahead.
"Somebody knows what happened to him and the others," he said. "Somebody needs to bring them back."
New York Times