Mexico: New graves found in hunt for missing students

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Protesters hold photos of missing students outside the Attorney General's office.

The 43 have been missing since they clashed with police almost three weeks ago in the town of Iguala. Vigilantes who joined the search said they had found six new burial pits, at least two of which contained what they believe are human remains. The search had been stepped up after forensic tests showed bodies found on 4 October were not those of the students.

Gruesome find

The latest burial pits were found by members of a group of vigilantes who had travelled to Iguala to help with the search. They said they had found six pits, two of which looked freshly dug but had not been used yet.

They searched three of the remaining four and said they found what looked like human remains, clothes and hair in two of them. If confirmed, this would bring the total number of mass graves found around Iguala since the students' disappearance to 19.

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Hillside grave examined for missing students.

'No match'

So far, forensic experts have only concluded tests on 28 bodies found on 4 October. They could not be matched with the DNA provided by the relatives of the students, raising questions as to who was in the mass grave. It is also not clear how long ago the grave may have been dug and by whom.

About 50 people have been arrested in connection with the students' disappearance, with the vast majority being local police officers. The officers are believed to have been working for a drugs gang, known as the Guerreros Unidos.

The missing students all attended a teacher training college in Ayotzinapa. The college has a history of left-wing activism but it is not clear whether the students were targeted for their political beliefs. They disappeared after clashes with the police on 26 September in which six people died. Eyewitnesses reported seeing them being bundled into police vans.

Comment: The Mexican state of Guerrero is notorious for marijuana and opium traffic. The relentless drug wars have resulted in over 40,000 gang-related murders and thousands of missing persons. Numerous mass graves and hundreds of bodies riddle drug-run localities victimized by a combination of organized crime, corrupt local police and territorial drug gangs. There is speculation that the 43 students were turned over to a local drug gang by the police. In the scuffle, two students died and one was left in a vegetative state. The body of a third student was found later, his face skinned and his eye gouged out. Iguala's mayor and police chief, both suspected of working with the cartel, are on the run. There are eight more mass burial sites yet to be examined. Psychopathic Gangsters. Pure Evil. Not Muslims. To speculate who is keeping these cartels in business...just look northward.