Search for student remains near dump in Mexico

Mexican investigators combed a desolate site near a rubbish dump yesterday in the search for the bodies of 43 students missing since they were arrested by the police in the southern city of Iguala a month ago.

The announcement of a possible burial site opened the possibility that authorities may have found the bodies of the students, all young men, who authorities have said were handed over to a local drug gang after their arrests. Officials confirmed to local media that human remains had been found at the site outside the town of Cocula, about 30 minutes from Iguala, but did not specify the number of bodies or their condition.

Attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam told a news conference on Monday four suspected members of the gang, known as Guerreros Unidos, had been arrested and had provided authorities with the information that had led them to Cocula. He invited reporters to go to the site yesterday.

"We have the first arrests of those who have confessed that they participated the night of September 26th and the early morning of September 27th in the disappearance and the fate" of the students, Mr Murillo Karam said. The arrests bring to 56 the number of people who have been detained over the students' disappearance, including police officers from Iguala and Cocula and gang members, among them the man whom authorities describe as the leader of Guerreros Unidos, Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado.

Political dilemma

The disappearance of the students has created a political dilemma for President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has sought to play down the issue of drug violence while he has tried to focus on the economy. But the search for the students has consumed Mexican public opinion. Their disappearance has set off violent protests in the state of Guerrero, where they were arrested, and demonstrations in much of the country, including a march by tens of thousands of people in Mexico City last week.

Resignation

The unrest forced the resignation of Guerrero’s governor, Ángel Aguirre, last week. On Monday, the interim governor, Rogelio Ortega Martínez, a sociologist with a background in the state’s leftist movements, met with Mr Peña Nieto.

Although Mexico’s drug war over the past eight years has produced many massacres, the students’ disappearance has resonated strongly because the investigation has revealed how effectively the drug gang had penetrated local government.

Mr Murillo Karam said last week Guerreros Unidos had infiltrated Iguala’s city hall and that the mayor’s wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa, had been identified as the gang’s main contact. Both the mayor, José Luis Abarca, and Ms Pineda Villa are accused of ordering police officers to confront the students on September 26th, provoking violent clashes that killed six people, including three students.

– (New York Times service)