Mexico City, Mexico — In an apparent attempt to breathe momentum into the case of 43 students who went missing 10 years ago, the government of Mexico’s Guerrero state launched a media campaign and announced a reward for any new information that leads to the students’ whereabouts or their suspected killers.
Students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College who were traveling on a bus en route to Mexico City on September 26, 2014 were forcibly abducted as the bus traveled through Iguala, Guerrero. High-ranking members of the security forces and a local drug cartel are suspected to have killed the male students and burned their bodies, according to investigators.
Mexico has acknowledged that their disappearance was a “state crime” but has yet to prosecute any high-ranking military or government officials, and an independent, nine-year investigation which ended last year accused Mexico’s government of stonewalling the investigation.
Read more: Investigation into Mexico’s 43 missing students ends, commission accuses government of stonewalling
Guerrero’s “Let’s Break the Silence” campaign involves state-wide media outreach and a reward of 10,000,000 pesos (around USD $515,000) for anyone who provides new information regarding the whereabouts of the 43 young men.
Through her X account, Governor Evelyn Salgado Pineda said the initiative follows a meeting held between state officials and the families of the 43 teaching students, also known as “normalistas,” due to the college’s name in Spanish.
“We are confident that this will yield new clues,” said the governor. “The purpose of this campaign is to extend and reinforce the search for the normalistas and at the same time to continue asking for the cooperation of the citizens in order to find their whereabouts.”
(Governor Salgado Pineda’s father has been accused of ties to drug cartels, but not the Guerreros Unidos cartel which is implicated in the disappearance of the students.)
According to a press release shared by the government of Guerrero, the campaign will involve digital and print media, social media, radio, and television, as well as the placement of billboards with photographs of the students at different points on the main highway that connects Mexico City with Acapulco, the largest tourist destination in the state.
Regarding the radio and television spots, they will feature the testimonies of the mothers of the 43 missing students, calling on the citizens to “break the silence” and file a complaint if they have information that leads to the whereabouts of their sons.
Governor Salgado Pineda, a member of the ruling MORENA political party, launched her initiative amid a near-total breakdown of dialogue between the families of the students and the federal government.
In March, protesters breached the presidential palace to demand President Andrés Manuel López Obrador act on the case, and parents have been demanding that Mexico release hundreds of military files related to the disappearance.
With less than two weeks left in office, President López Obrador looks to have failed to come through on his campaign promise to resolve the case and bring justice to the families of the missing students. Parents of the missing accuse the president of protecting military leaders.
“You, Mr. President, have lied to, deceived, and betrayed us,” read a statement from the families published in July. “You looked us in the eye and pledged your word during the campaign that you would resolve this crime against humanity, providing us with the long-desired truth and justice that every human being has the right to know: the whereabouts of their missing loved ones.”
