Mexico Officially Declares 43 Missing Students Dead

This is the first time all the students have been officially declared dead despite DNA identification of only one student and the declaration from a lab in Innsbruck, Austria, that it appears impossible to identify the rest of the bodies.

The announcement was made in a news conference citing confessions and forensic evidence from the spot near a garbage dump where he said the students were killed and incinerated shortly after being seized by police.

Reports indicate that 99 people have been arrested in connection with the killings.

Mr Murillo insisted that the students were killed by the gang and their bodies burnt at a rubbish dump, an explanation which relatives of the disappeared have rejected.

He said his team had 39 confessions from police and from members of the gang but parents reacted angrily saying that without proof  they would continue to believe their children were alive.

Murillo added that a key witness was Felipe Rodriguez Salgado otherwise known as "El Cepillo" a member of the criminal gang which is alleged to have taken part in the kidnapping, murder and disappearance of the students.

"The evidence allows us to determine that the students were kidnapped, killed, burned and thrown in the river," said Mr Murillo.

Murillo  said evidence of gas, diesel and burnt rocks and steel from the inside of tyres at the scene proved this had taken place.

The students had travelled from a teacher training college in Ayotzinapa to Iguala.

They had gone to protest against what they said were discriminatory employment practices for teachers which favor urban students over rural ones.

Police opened fire on the students who were in buses travelling back from Iguala to their college.

Three of them were killed and three more people in nearby vehicles also died.

A busload of the students tried to flee but were chased by municipal officers who then took them to the local police station.

By Bonareri Samaha

Source:BBC News

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