On Christmas Eve, in pouring rain, a few dozen parents and supporters met in front the presidential complex at Los Pinos to reiterate their pledge to keep up the search for their children and to demand President Enrique Peña Nieto keep his promise to find them.
As the Mexican government announced they will suspend the search for the remaining 42 Ayotzinapa students who’ve been missing since the violent events in Iguala of September 26, parents vow they will not rest for the holidays.
“It is incredible that Enrique Peña Nieto is spending time with his family while we do not have our children with us,” Felipe de la Cruz, one of the parents and spokesperson, said to reporters at the event.
Protesters chanted, “No Christmas, No New Year. They took them alive, we want them back alive!” and appealed to the government to continue the search for the missing students over the holidays.
"In Ayotzinapa there is no Christmas, and will not be without our children. Because each of our families are incomplete, and now Christmas is not in our hearts, ” he said, adding, "We are feeling pain and sorrow, but also we are enraged at the audacity of the president to give a message of peace in Mexico when he knows that our country today is plagued by crime, and is controlled by organized crime.”
On the night of September 26, students were attacked by police gunfire in Iguala, presumably by order of the Guerrero city mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, in clashes leaving 6 people dead and 25 injured. Since that day, the students, who attended the Ayotzinapa teachers college in a town outside of Iguala, have been missing. According to official reports, the municipal police handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos cartel, who killed them and burned their bodies in a garbage dump in neighboring town of Cocula. Many, however, refuse to believe the government’s version of events.
