Several dozen people, who were demonstrating against the kidnapping and disappearance in 2014 of 43 students from the Ayotzina Normal School, broke down one of the doors of the presidential palace in Mexico City, according to images from Mexican television Milenio.
In the channel's images, we see the demonstrators use a van to break down the door before some of them, with their faces masked, enter the presidential palace.
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URGENT: Encapuchados, presuntamente normalistas, utilizaron a truck to demolish a gate of Palacio Nacional in Mexico City, specifically on the access to Calle Moneda.
pic.twitter.com/er3tRF0Zkm
— UHN PLUS (@UHN_Plus) March 6, 2024
Local media El Universal reports that military police reportedly used gas and riot equipment such as shields and sticks to disperse the protesters.
“A very conflicting political attitude”
Following these clashes, President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador denounced "the attitude, not of parents, but of advisors and organizations supposed to defend human rights, (which) is at best a very political attitude conflicting against us.
The head of state also declared that he would not meet the parents of the missing students but that they will be listened to by a member of the Ministry of the Interior.
President AMLO commented that he did not meet with the fathers of Ayotzinapa and that he was expected by the subsecretario of government.
“Ya la actitud, no de los padres, si no de los asesores y de las organizaciones que supuestamente defienden los derechos humanos es una actitud… pic.twitter.com/8J79tCqhJg
— El Universal (@El_Universal_Mx) March 6, 2024
“They would like us to respond violently.
We are not going to do it because we are not oppressors,” he also said.
“We will repair the door and there is no problem,” he assured.
Demonstrators had already tried to attack the doors of the National Palace, seat of the presidency since 2018. This is the first time in years that they have achieved their goal.
Regular events
Relatives of the 43 disappeared, accompanied by their lawyers, activists and students demonstrate regularly in the center of Mexico City, especially as the anniversary of the tragedy approaches.
A camp in their memory is set up on the main artery in the center of the capital, opposite the national palace.
The Ayotzinapa students disappeared on the night of September 27, 2014 after going to Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero, where they were preparing to board several buses to go to the capital Mexico and participate in a demonstration.
According to official versions, they were kidnapped by the police, in collusion with criminals, and were delivered to the Guerreros Unidos cartel which allegedly murdered them.
The affair had traumatized the country.
In 2023, foreign experts deemed it “impossible” to continue their expertise begun in 2015 in the case of the 43 students who disappeared in Mexico in 2014, due to the concealment of information by the Mexican state, deemed responsible.
President Lopez Obrador has pledged to thoroughly review the investigations and find the missing young people.