Parents of Mexico's missing 43 between sorrow and hope of finding them alive
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Tixtla – After almost two years of mourning, the parents of Ayotzinapa's 43 missing students keep looking for their youngsters with hopes of finding them alive but always pained by the many complications that continue to block a final solution to the case.
"These two years have been desperate, like a nightmare we're living through. Every day we wake up and see their beds, their things, and it's like experiencing death in life," Hilda Legideño, mother of Jorge Antonio, 20, who disappeared on Sept. 26, 2014 in Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero, told EFE.
Jorge Antonio was one of the youths involved in the tragedy that has marked Mexican history. He left behind a little 3-year-old girl and the ambition to become a teacher, for which he was studying at the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teacher Training College in Ayotzinapa, which trains aspiring teachers from poor families to serve in rural communities.
"He was very mischievous, very lively...he had the gift of getting along with everyone," Hilda recalled Friday.
Hilda's remarks are similar to those of the majority of Iguala's parents, mostly low-income families in poor, violence-ridden areas, who, two years after the tragedy, have used what few resources they had to demand truth and justice about what happened to their youngsters.
"We've lost everything to concentrate on finding our children," said this woman who had to close the "little store" where she made and sold paper goods like piñatas and flowers.
On that fateful night in 2014, six people - including three students - were killed and 43 other students were abducted after commandeering buses that they had planned to use to travel to Mexico City for a protest.
Federal authorities say the incident was the work of corrupt municipal cops acting on the orders of Iguala's crooked mayor.
The cops handed over the students to Guerreros Unidos drug cartel gunmen, who killed the young people, burned their bodies at the garbage dump in nearby Cocula and tossed the bones in the San Juan River, according to the official story.
But the parents of the missing students and their supporters reject that account, and last year a group of independent experts commissioned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a report that cited a series of irregularities in the investigation.
Among other things, the experts said in their report - released on Sept. 6, 2015, and based on six months of field work, interviews and a review of the government's evidence and conclusions - that "no evidence existed to support the theory" that 43 bodies were incinerated at the dump on Sept. 27, 2014, the day after the students disappeared.
Indeed, the report said the evidence gathered at the site showed there was not enough fire to burn even one body.
The experts also corroborated news reports indicating that federal police had been monitoring the students since they left Ayotzinapa for Iguala and at the very least knew that they had come under armed attack yet did not intervene.
Meanwhile the parents continue seeking the truth despite anything they might discover. "We're ready for any news. We know that our youngsters could still be alive, but also that they might not," the sorrowing Hilda said.
Their slogan from the beginning has been "They were taken alive, we want them back alive."]Tixtla – After almost two years of mourning, the parents of Ayotzinapa's 43 missing students keep looking for their youngsters with hopes of finding them alive but always pained by the many complications that continue to block a final solution to the case.[/url]
"These two years have been desperate, like a nightmare we're living through. Every day we wake up and see their beds, their things, and it's like experiencing death in life," Hilda Legideño, mother of Jorge Antonio, 20, who disappeared on Sept. 26, 2014 in Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero, told EFE.
Jorge Antonio was one of the youths involved in the tragedy that has marked Mexican history. He left behind a little 3-year-old girl and the ambition to become a teacher, for which he was studying at the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teacher Training College in Ayotzinapa, which trains aspiring teachers from poor families to serve in rural communities.
"He was very mischievous, very lively...he had the gift of getting along with everyone," Hilda recalled Friday.
Hilda's remarks are similar to those of the majority of Iguala's parents, mostly low-income families in poor, violence-ridden areas, who, two years after the tragedy, have used what few resources they had to demand truth and justice about what happened to their youngsters.
"We've lost everything to concentrate on finding our children," said this woman who had to close the "little store" where she made and sold paper goods like piñatas and flowers.
On that fateful night in 2014, six people - including three students - were killed and 43 other students were abducted after commandeering buses that they had planned to use to travel to Mexico City for a protest.
Federal authorities say the incident was the work of corrupt municipal cops acting on the orders of Iguala's crooked mayor.
The cops handed over the students to Guerreros Unidos drug cartel gunmen, who killed the young people, burned their bodies at the garbage dump in nearby Cocula and tossed the bones in the San Juan River, according to the official story.
But the parents of the missing students and their supporters reject that account, and last year a group of independent experts commissioned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a report that cited a series of irregularities in the investigation.
Among other things, the experts said in their report - released on Sept. 6, 2015, and based on six months of field work, interviews and a review of the government's evidence and conclusions - that "no evidence existed to support the theory" that 43 bodies were incinerated at the dump on Sept. 27, 2014, the day after the students disappeared.
Indeed, the report said the evidence gathered at the site showed there was not enough fire to burn even one body.
The experts also corroborated news reports indicating that federal police had been monitoring the students since they left Ayotzinapa for Iguala and at the very least knew that they had come under armed attack yet did not intervene.
Meanwhile the parents continue seeking the truth despite anything they might discover. "We're ready for any news. We know that our youngsters could still be alive, but also that they might not," the sorrowing Hilda said.
Their slogan from the beginning has been "They were taken alive, we want them back alive."
[url=
Tixtla – After almost two years of mourning, the parents of Ayotzinapa's 43 missing students keep looking for their youngsters with hopes of finding them alive but always pained by the many complications that continue to block a final solution to the case.
"These two years have been desperate, like a nightmare we're living through. Every day we wake up and see their beds, their things, and it's like experiencing death in life," Hilda Legideño, mother of Jorge Antonio, 20, who disappeared on Sept. 26, 2014 in Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero, told EFE.
Jorge Antonio was one of the youths involved in the tragedy that has marked Mexican history. He left behind a little 3-year-old girl and the ambition to become a teacher, for which he was studying at the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teacher Training College in Ayotzinapa, which trains aspiring teachers from poor families to serve in rural communities.
"He was very mischievous, very lively...he had the gift of getting along with everyone," Hilda recalled Friday.
Hilda's remarks are similar to those of the majority of Iguala's parents, mostly low-income families in poor, violence-ridden areas, who, two years after the tragedy, have used what few resources they had to demand truth and justice about what happened to their youngsters.
"We've lost everything to concentrate on finding our children," said this woman who had to close the "little store" where she made and sold paper goods like piñatas and flowers.
On that fateful night in 2014, six people - including three students - were killed and 43 other students were abducted after commandeering buses that they had planned to use to travel to Mexico City for a protest.
Federal authorities say the incident was the work of corrupt municipal cops acting on the orders of Iguala's crooked mayor.
The cops handed over the students to Guerreros Unidos drug cartel gunmen, who killed the young people, burned their bodies at the garbage dump in nearby Cocula and tossed the bones in the San Juan River, according to the official story.
But the parents of the missing students and their supporters reject that account, and last year a group of independent experts commissioned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a report that cited a series of irregularities in the investigation.
Among other things, the experts said in their report - released on Sept. 6, 2015, and based on six months of field work, interviews and a review of the government's evidence and conclusions - that "no evidence existed to support the theory" that 43 bodies were incinerated at the dump on Sept. 27, 2014, the day after the students disappeared.
Indeed, the report said the evidence gathered at the site showed there was not enough fire to burn even one body.
The experts also corroborated news reports indicating that federal police had been monitoring the students since they left Ayotzinapa for Iguala and at the very least knew that they had come under armed attack yet did not intervene.
Meanwhile the parents continue seeking the truth despite anything they might discover. "We're ready for any news. We know that our youngsters could still be alive, but also that they might not," the sorrowing Hilda said.
Their slogan from the beginning has been "They were taken alive, we want them back alive."]Tixtla – After almost two years of mourning, the parents of Ayotzinapa's 43 missing students keep looking for their youngsters with hopes of finding them alive but always pained by the many complications that continue to block a final solution to the case.[/url]
"These two years have been desperate, like a nightmare we're living through. Every day we wake up and see their beds, their things, and it's like experiencing death in life," Hilda Legideño, mother of Jorge Antonio, 20, who disappeared on Sept. 26, 2014 in Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero, told EFE.
Jorge Antonio was one of the youths involved in the tragedy that has marked Mexican history. He left behind a little 3-year-old girl and the ambition to become a teacher, for which he was studying at the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teacher Training College in Ayotzinapa, which trains aspiring teachers from poor families to serve in rural communities.
"He was very mischievous, very lively...he had the gift of getting along with everyone," Hilda recalled Friday.
Hilda's remarks are similar to those of the majority of Iguala's parents, mostly low-income families in poor, violence-ridden areas, who, two years after the tragedy, have used what few resources they had to demand truth and justice about what happened to their youngsters.
"We've lost everything to concentrate on finding our children," said this woman who had to close the "little store" where she made and sold paper goods like piñatas and flowers.
On that fateful night in 2014, six people - including three students - were killed and 43 other students were abducted after commandeering buses that they had planned to use to travel to Mexico City for a protest.
Federal authorities say the incident was the work of corrupt municipal cops acting on the orders of Iguala's crooked mayor.
The cops handed over the students to Guerreros Unidos drug cartel gunmen, who killed the young people, burned their bodies at the garbage dump in nearby Cocula and tossed the bones in the San Juan River, according to the official story.
But the parents of the missing students and their supporters reject that account, and last year a group of independent experts commissioned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a report that cited a series of irregularities in the investigation.
Among other things, the experts said in their report - released on Sept. 6, 2015, and based on six months of field work, interviews and a review of the government's evidence and conclusions - that "no evidence existed to support the theory" that 43 bodies were incinerated at the dump on Sept. 27, 2014, the day after the students disappeared.
Indeed, the report said the evidence gathered at the site showed there was not enough fire to burn even one body.
The experts also corroborated news reports indicating that federal police had been monitoring the students since they left Ayotzinapa for Iguala and at the very least knew that they had come under armed attack yet did not intervene.
Meanwhile the parents continue seeking the truth despite anything they might discover. "We're ready for any news. We know that our youngsters could still be alive, but also that they might not," the sorrowing Hilda said.
Their slogan from the beginning has been "They were taken alive, we want them back alive."
