Inside Story

Missing Mexico students: Who is responsible?

Protesters demand justice for missing 43 trainee teachers who are feared murdered in Mexico.

It’s a case that has shocked a nation already hardened by gang violence and drug related crime – the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico, suspected of being abducted and murdered.
 
The government, a mayor, police officers and gang members have all been implicated.
 
Protesters have vented their frustration on president Enrique Pena Nieto, by setting fire to the doors of the national palace in Mexico City.
 
Mexico’s Attorney General has told parents the students were murdered by criminals on police orders. 
 
Jesus Murillo said three gang members confessed to loading them on to trucks, murdering them at a landfill, burning their bodies and dumping their remains in a river.
 
He said: “The detainees pointed out that in this area they took the lives of the survivors and then they put them under the rubbish dump where they burnt the bodies.

“They took shifts so that the fire lasted hours, using diesel, petrol, tires, plastic.”
 
But what’s behind the suspected abduction and killing? And is the president losing the fight against corruption and organised crime?
 
Presenter: Jane Dutton
 
Guests:
 
Anabel Hernandez – Investigative Journalist who specialises in Mexican government corruption and drug cartels.
 
Perseo Quiroz – Executive Director of Amnesty International Mexico.
 
John Ackerman – Professor at the Institute for Legal Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Editor-in-Chief of the Mexican Law Review.

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