--- description: A new report by an independent panel has pulled apart the official account of what happened to the 43 students who went missing in 2014. title: Mexico's Missing Students: 'Case Not Closed' Experts Say image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8c5cd5f174b7ed22/69889098e20a87ac2ea9092d/guerrero-mexico-missing-students.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Mexico's Missing Students: 'Case Not Closed,' Independent Experts Say by [Ioan Grillo / Mexico City](/author/ioan-grillo/) ## Ioan Grillo / Mexico City Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Apr 26, 2016 2:18 AM CUT  Relatives of the 43 missing students in Ayotzinapa stage a protest during the news conference of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts to publicize details of the report about the disappearances in Mexico City, Mexico, April 24, 2016. Relatives of the 43 missing students in Ayotzinapa stage a protest during the news conference of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts to publicize details of the report about the disappearances in Mexico City, Mexico, April 24, 2016.Manuel Velasquez—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images by [Ioan Grillo / Mexico City](/author/ioan-grillo/) ## Ioan Grillo / Mexico City Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Apr 26, 2016 2:18 AM CUT On the stormy night of Sept. 26, 2014, police from the Mexican city of Iguala pursued a bus full of student teachers, firing shots until it was forced to a halt. The officers then smashed the bus windows with batons and stones and threw in tear-gas canisters to force the students out. When they had them face down and in cuffs, an officer said the detainees wouldn’t fit in the patrol cars. His companion said not to worry, as more police were coming from the nearby city of Huitzuco. Minutes later, three police cars arrived and the students were loaded in — the last verified sighting of them alive. This description of the abduction, given by the bus driver, is among the evidence examined [in a new report](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3wuz7S3S9urNFFlZUNMSldQUlk/view "undefined") on the Iguala attacks released Sunday by an independent group of experts, who had been appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The 608-page document raises crucial questions about the fate of the students in what has become the most high-profile crime in Mexico in recent years. On that night, a total of 43 students disappeared after traveling on several buses, and another six students and passersby were murdered. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand justice following the attacks. Under pressure, the Mexican government agreed to work with the independent experts on the investigation. The experts’ report, the second they have released, pokes various holes in the government’s case. In 2014, the Mexican attorney general claimed that corrupt police handed students to assassins from a heroin cartel called Guerreros Unidos, or Warriors United. The cartel burned all the missing students at a garbage dump near a town called Cocula, he said. However, the experts argue that evidence shows a fire of the size needed to burn 43 bodies never happened there. Families of the students have long rejected the attorney general’s account and called on the government to keep searching for the students in other places, including in Huitzuco. More recently, federal investigators have changed their line to say that only some of the students may have been burned at the Cocula dump. The problems in the investigation have become a central focus of criticism for President Enrique Peña Nieto, whose [approval ratings fell to a new low](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-president-poll-idUSKCN0XA1RX "undefined") of 30% this month. “For Mexico’s civil society, the case of Iguala has become symbolic of the larger failures in Mexico’s justice system,” says Raul Benitez-Manaut, who heads a think tank on security issues. “In the Iguala investigation, there are cases of torturing of suspects and the mishandling of evidence. These are problems we see everyday in Mexico. The government is failing to confront these issues.” ### Confronting Mexico’s Latest Cruel Massacre  In response to the horrific kidnapping of 43 students from Iguala in Guerrero State, Mexicans, fed up with the country's violence and corruption, took to the streets, including this protest in Mexico City. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  Portraits of the missing students hang in the main square of Chilpancingo de los Bravo, the capital of Guerrero State where the drug cartels operate with impunity. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  At Ayotzinapa University, a memorial to students who died during the recent violence in Iguala. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  Members of a local militia in Guerrero look for the missing students. While searching for the missing students, other mass graves were uncovered, which highlights the pervasive violence in Guerrero State. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  Community police patrol the violent streets of Xaltianguis. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  Cars are searched in the wake of the disappearance of the students and recent drug cartel violence. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  With community police searching the area, Iguala has become a massive crime scene. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  The mountains of Guerrero, where cartels and drug plantations are common. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  During demonstrations, protestors drew chalk outlines to represent the bodies of crime victims. More than 70,000 people have been killed in cartel related violence in the past seven years. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  The main cemetery in Chilpancingo, the capital and second-largest city of the state of Guerrero, Mexico, where many of the victims of Mexico's drug war are buried. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  A bullet-ridden house, a vestige of Mexico's drug war, was damaged during a confrontation between local drug gangsters and the federal police. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  Ayotzinapa University, a rural school founded after the revolution to bring literacy to the countryside, is steeped in a radical leftist tradition, with murals of the revolutionary Che Guevara adorning the campus. On Sept. 26, about 120 of Ayotzinapa’s teacher trainees went to Iguala to hijack buses to travel to Mexico City, where they hoped to commemorate a massacre of students back in 1968\. After taking two vehicles, they ran into a blockade of police officers, who began firing at them. The corrupt police and cartel thugs then kidnapped 43 students who are now feared dead. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  A communal room where students sleep in Ayotzinapa University. The university operates on a shoestring, with students often sleeping on floors in dilapidated buildings. Students have been protesting an overhaul of the education system by Mexican President Pena Nieto. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  Margarito Guerrero, father of Jhosvani Guerrero, one of the 43 students who disappeared on Sept. 26 from Ayotzinapa University. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME  Cristina Bautista, mother of Benjamín Ascencio Bautista, one of 43 students kidnapped and feared killed. Sebastian Liste—NOOR for TIME The new report documents signs of torture on at least 17 of the more than 100 suspects who have been arrested over the student disappearances, among them police officers and alleged cartel gunmen. While the suspects could have been involved in the crime, the torture allegations raise doubts about their testimonies. “We never defend criminals, but we also know that thanks to torture, they say what is convenient for the attorney general’s office,” Mario Gonzalez, the father of one of the missing students, [said Monday](http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/articulo/nacion/sociedad/2016/04/25/padres-de-normalistas-piden-investigar-tomas-zeron "undefined") following the release of the report. (The issue of torture in Mexico has been in the news following the emergence of a recent video that showed soldiers and police suffocating a suspected kidnapper with a plastic bag, prompting the nation’s defense secretary to offer a public apology.) The report also examines the mishandling of crime scenes in the Iguala investigation. Key sites, such as the garbage dump where students were supposed to have been burned, were left unguarded. A charred bone fragment, identified though DNA to be one of the students, was found in a bag in a river near to the dump. However, the experts raise questions about the shady presence of federal officers by the river in the days before this bag was found. The parents of the disappeared students said Monday that there should be an investigation into whether evidence was moved or planted. President Peña Nieto responded to the report [with a tweet](https://twitter.com/EPN/status/724331079109251072 "undefined") promising to take the experts’ findings into account. “The PGR\_MX (Attorney General’s Office) will analyze the complete report to enrich its investigation into the tragic events of September 26 and 27, 2014,” he said Sunday. However, Mexico’s government has already said it would not renew the contracts of the experts after April. Police have long worked with drug cartels across Mexico, exacerbating bloodshed that claims thousands of lives every year. The webs of corruption have hampered criminal cases, and the role of experts raised hopes that there could be a more open investigation into the Iguala attacks. However, Carlos Beristain, one of the experts, [said Monday](http://www.radioformula.com.mx/notas.asp?Idn=588606&idFC=2016http://www.radioformula.com.mx/notas.asp?Idn=588606&idFC=2016#sthash.fOUxoUiE.dpuf "undefined") there is still much work to be done. “We are leaving with a bittersweet taste,” Beristain said. “The case is not closed.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4307387/mexico-missing-43-students-iguala-report/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4307387/mexico-missing-43-students-iguala-report/"},"headline":"Mexico's Missing Students: 'Case Not Closed,' Independent Experts Say","datePublished":"2016-04-26T02:18:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:00:04.516Z","description":"An independent panel of experts has pulled apart official accounts in a new, 608-page document","url":"https://time.com/4307387/mexico-missing-43-students-iguala-report/","keywords":["Mexico"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8c5cd5f174b7ed22/69889098e20a87ac2ea9092d/guerrero-mexico-missing-students.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ioan Grillo / Mexico City"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8c5cd5f174b7ed22/69889098e20a87ac2ea9092d/guerrero-mexico-missing-students.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"mexico-missing-students-report","caption":"mexico-missing-students-report","creditText":"Manuel Velasquez—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4307387/mexico-missing-43-students-iguala-report/","name":"Mexico's Missing Students: 'Case Not Closed,' Independent Experts Say"}}]}] ```