Mexicans demand safe return of 43 students

Tens of thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of the Mexican capital demanding the safe return of 43 students who went missing over a month ago, with hopes that the arrest of key suspects would bring answers.

Demonstrators chanted: “They took them alive, we want them alive,” holding a large banner with images of the 43 college students. Their disappearance has drawn international outrage and turned into a full-blown crisis for President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Former mayor of the southern city of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca, and his wife, Maria de Los Angeles Pineda, were arrested on Tuesday in a gritty neighbourhood of Mexico City as the main suspects in the case.

Their capture raised hopes that they could offer tangible clues about the students’ whereabouts almost six weeks after they were attacked by Iguala police officers linked to the Guerreros Unidos gang.

Prosecutors accuse the mayoral couple of plotting the attack with the gang over fears the students would disrupt a speech by Pineda, who was head of the local child protection agency.

The night of terror left six people dead and the 43 students missing.

Organisers said 120,000 people marched in the latest protest over the case while police counted 60,000. Parents of the missing, joined by protesters, said the arrest was not enough.

“We demand that the government present our sons alive,” said one of the fathers, Felipe de la Cruz, at a rally in front of the historic National Palace.

Read more » Aljazeera
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