Hundreds of students and teachers smashed windows and set fires inside a
state capital building in southern Mexico on Monday, as fury erupted
over the disappearance of 43 young people believed abducted by local
police linked to a drug cartel.
The protesters called for the 43 students from a rural teachers' college
in Guerrero state, missing since Sept. 26, to be returned alive, even
though fears have grown that 10 newly discovered mass graves could
contain their bodies.
AP photographs showed smoke billowing from the government building in
Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, and flames licking from office
windows. Firefighters battled the blaze.
Jose Villanueva Manzanarez, spokesman for Guerrero's government, said
the protesting members of a teachers' union initially tried to get into
the state congress in Chilpancingo but were repelled by anti-riot
police. They then headed to the state government palace.
With the support of hundreds of students from the Ayotzinapa teachers'
college, the teachers blockaded the capital building, attacking it with
battle bars, rocks and Molotov cocktails, he said.
The violence came more than two weeks after police in Iguala, also in
Guerrero state, opened fire on the teacher's college students, killing
at least six. Witnesses have said that dozens of students were taken
away by police and have not been seen since. Twenty-six local police
officers have been detained, and officials are attempting to determine
if any of the students are in the mass graves nearby.
The confrontation in Iguala shed light on a widespread problem with
local police in Mexico: They are often linked to organized crime. In the
case of Iguala, the police who attacked the students were working with
the local cartel, Guerreros Unidos, according to testimony of those
arrested.
Monday's protests came after police in Guerrero shot and wounded a
German university student in a reported case of mistaken identity,
prosecutors said.
The victim, Kim Fritz Kaiser, is an exchange student at the Monterrey
Institute of Technology, Mexico City campus, said institute director
Pedro Grassa. He told Milenio television Monday that Kaiser is in good condition and
that that injury was not grave, though Kaiser will remain under
observation.
Kaiser was in a van with other students — another German, two French and
six Mexicans — traveling back from Acapulco and passing through
Chilpancingo just after a confrontation between police and kidnappers
that killed one officer.
Police tried to stop the van, believing it was suspicious. Police said
they opened fire when they heard something that sounded like a shot or
detonation, said Victor Leon Maldonado of the Guerrero state
prosecutor's office. The students kept driving, fearing that armed men
might be trying to kidnap them, state prosecutor Inaky Blanco said.
Maldonado told reporters in a press conference that the officers shot at
the bottom of the van, trying to hit the tires to make it stop. Kaiser
was shot in the buttocks. The police involved have been detained and
their weapons are being tested, according to a statement from the state
attorney general's office.
A U.S. State Department travel warning issued last week said U.S.
citizens should avoid Chilpancingo along with all parts of Guerrero
state outside of the Pacific resorts of Acapulco, Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo
and the tourist attractions of Taxco and the Cacahuamilpa caves.
A previous warning in January already advised against travel in the
northwestern part of the state near the border with Mexico state, where
Iguala is located.
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