Search for missing students leads to human remains, 17 suspects

Twelve years after the disappearance of dozens of Mexican students from a rural university, allegedly at the hands of drug traffickers and police, authorities said Monday they had identified 17 new suspects. Thousands of people attended an annual march on Saturday in Mexico City to demand justice for 43 young men who were studying to be rural teachers in Ayotzinapa, in the violence-hit state of Guerrero. The students were traveling from Guerrero to a protest in Mexico City on Sept. 26, 2014, when police stopped them in the town of Iguala. The investigation suggests the police handed the students over to a local cartel. In 2024, an alleged leader of the Guerreros Unidos cartel was arrested in connection with the case.Dozens of arrests have been made but so far no one has been convicted in an affair that traumatized Mexico and stained the country's reputation. Only three bodies have been recovered. Mauricio Pazaran, the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation, said a new analysis of phone calls made on the night of the students' disappearance led to the arrests of the 17 new suspects.He said the analysis revealed communications between public officials, police officers, ind...