After suspected gang members reportedly confessed Friday to the massacre of 43 Mexican students who have been missing since six weeks, furious protestors came out in droves to burn several vehicles and throw firebombs at a southern Mexican state's headquarters on Saturday, Agence France-Presse reported.
Descending on the Guerrero government headquarters in Chilpancingo on Saturday, more than 300 mask-wearing students burned around 10 vehicles, including trucks and a federal police vehicle, and broke the building's windows by throwing rocks at them.
"We are asking the same thing as usual. We want to see our comrades alive," a masked student told AFP.
In a press conference on Friday, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam showed videotaped confessions by three Guerreros Unidos gang members "who testified they used dump trucks to carry the students to a landfill site in Cocula, a city near Iguala. About 15 of the students were already dead when they arrived at the site and the rest were shot there, according to the suspects," the Associated Press reported.
A gruesome video that featured investigators combing through hundreds of charred fragments of bone and teeth fished from the river and its banks was also shown by Murillo Karam, who added that although it will be extremely difficult to extract DNA from the charred remains, authorities will continue to consider the students as missing until DNA tests confirm the identities, The Telegraph reported.
However the parents, human rights groups and Mexicans in general, who have been appalled by the government's slow response to the horrific case and have come to distrust them, reacted to Murillo Karam's report Friday by claiming that they would not accept that their children are dead until they get a final ruling from independent Argentine forensic experts who are taking part in the investigation, according to New York Daily News.
"As long as there are no results, our sons are alive," Felipe de la Cruz, the father of one of the disappeared. "Today they're trying to close the case this way ... a blatant way to further our torture by the federal government."
On Sept. 26-27, Iguala city police attacked a group of students rallying to protest against government policies. Six people were killed, more than two dozen injured and more than 50 students vanished. About 15 eventually were found hiding in their homes, but 43 remained missing, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The Aytozinapa Normal school, attended by the missing students, is known for militant and radical protests that often involve hijacking buses and delivery trucks, according to Fox News.
Within days, 22 police officers were arrested for what prosecutors said was the unjustifiable use of excessive force. They are believed to have been penetrated by criminal organizations and a drug gang, known as the Guerreros Unidos, at whose behest the police might have been acting. Later in the investigation, it was alleged that the police had also acted under orders of the former Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife.
The case will continue to be investigated until all those responsible for the "horrible crime" are hunted down, President Enrique Pena Nieto said.
"To the parents of the missing young men and society as a whole, I assure you that we won't stop until justice is served," Pena Nieto said.
