Search for dozens of missing students in Mexico leads to discovery of human remains and 17 new suspects

Twelve years after disappearance of dozens of Mexican students at a rural university apparently in the hands of drug traffickers and police, authorities announced Monday that they had identified 17 new suspects.

Thousands of people took part in an annual march in Mexico City on Saturday to demand justice for 43 young men who were studying to become rural teachers in Ayotzinapa, in the violence-hit state of Guerrero. The students were on their way from Guerrero to a protest in Mexico City on September 26, 2014, when police arrested them in the town of Iguala.

The investigation suggests that police turned the students over to a local cartel. In 2024, an alleged leader of the Guerreros Unidos cartel was arrested in connection with the case.

Dozens of arrests have been made, but so far no one has been convicted in a case that has traumatized Mexico and tarnished the country’s reputation.

Only three bodies were found.

Mauricio Pazaran, the special prosecutor leading the investigation, said a new analysis of phone calls made the night the students disappeared led to the arrest of the 17 new suspects.

He said the analysis revealed communications between public officials, police officers, individuals linked to organized crime groups and private citizens.

He added that at a funeral home, investigators found an illegally obtained weapon, a bone and unregistered bone fragments and teeth.

He said a civil servant and a municipal police officer used the cell phones of two students a few days after their disappearance.

One of the new witnesses “participated directly in the events, but was a minor at the time”, he added.

The minor, arrested in April, is a member of the Guerreros Unidos cartel, the prosecutor said.

He indicated that a total of 168 people are being prosecuted in this case, of whom 130 are in pre-trial detention.

In August, a former governor was arrested for ordering the deletion of footage from Iguala security cameras on the night of the disappearances.

Last year, authorities arrested former senior judge in connection with the case. Lambertina Galeana is accused of helping to cover up videos that allegedly show the incident unfolding, officials said.

The state’s former attorney general was also stopped in 2022 in connection with the case.

Authorities were only able to identify burned bone fragments on a few of the 43 missing students. The work largely consists of researching illegal dumpsites in rural and isolated areas of the state where drug cartels are active.

Mexico is plagued by cartel violence that has killed or disappeared more than half a million people in just a few decades, according to government estimates.