Two months after the abduction of 43 missing students made national headlines and created a controversial political storm in the county, a Mexican state governor has confirmed that a second mass disappearance of students had occurred in the rural communities of his state of Guerrero in Jul of 2013.
Twenty-seven students reportedly disappeared after unknown gunmen stormed some of the houses in the rural town of Cocula during a midnight raid on July 2, 2013, Guerrero's governor Rogelio Ortega Martinez told the Mexican TV station Milenio. The entire incident appears to have gone unreported until now.
The bombshell revelation came when Ortega was questioned about Cocula mayor Cesar Miguel Penaloza's recent arrest for his alleged role in the kidnapping and execution of 43 missing students from the town of Ayotzinapa, Breitbart reported. Penaloza, currently in federal police custody, is expected to face questioning.
During the interview, Ortega said that Penaloza would likely be questioned about the 27 unidentified students that had gone missing in 2013. He also claimed that the mass kidnapping incident had recently been reported by the French magazine France 24, but the publication ended up running a retraction.
"A few weeks ago the French press spoke about the disappearance of some teenagers, that didn't happen this year but it did happen on July 2 and July 3, 2013 during the late night and early morning," Ortega said. "The criminal group Guerreros Unidos kidnapped from their homes 27 teenagers that remain missing."
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, was known for militant and radical protests that often involved 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.
Then earlier in November, suspected gang members reportedly confessed that the 43 Mexican students were loaded onto dump trucks, murdered at a landfill, burned beyond recognition and tossed into the San Juan River in Cocula.
Meanwhile, more than 20,000 people are registered as having disappeared in Mexico in the past eight years. Most of them have never been found.
