After 43 students were abducted 10 weeks ago by police in southern Mexico, DNA tests have confirmed that the students were murdered and their bodies burned, reported the Huffington Post.
After collecting human remains near a suspected burn site at the bottom of a garbage pit in Cocula, Guerrero, Mexico, authorities sent the remains to be tested by DNA experts in Austria. The results found that the remains belong to Alexander Mora Venancio, a student at the Ayotzinapa Normal School.
“This scientific proof confirms that the remains found at the scene coincide with the evidence of the investigation,” said Attorney General Jesus Murillo. “We will continue with the probe until all the guilty have been arrested.”
Murillo said four weeks ago that some gang members had confessed to killing and incinerating the bodies of the 43 students on the stack of tires at the dump. Despite evidence and confessions insisting that the students have all been murdered, families of the disappeared students remain hopeful that their sons are still alive.
“To be honest, we are very angry,” said Ezequiel Mora, Alexander’s father. “They want to close the case by telling us our sons are dead. But we believe they are alive.”
Since the disappearance of the 43 students, protests and riots have erupted all over Mexico by citizens who say they are fed up with the Mexican government and local police forces’ failure to curtail drug violence. Since 2007, over 100,000 people have been killed during the Mexican drug wars.
For some background on this issue, VICE News released a striking documentary about the missing 43 students and the public aftermath.
