Search for Mexico’s Missing Students Finds 129 Other Bodies

The search for 43 missing college students in the southern state of Guerrero has turned up at least 60 clandestine graves and 129 bodies over the last 10 months, Mexico’s attorney general’s office says.

None of the remains has been connected to the youths who disappeared after a clash with police in the city of Iguala on Sept. 26, and authorities do not believe any will be. Prosecutors say the students were turned over to a drug gang that killed them and incinerated their bodies in a case that has put attention on the huge number of people who have gone missing in Guerrero and other Mexican states where drug violence is widespread.

The number of bodies and graves found from October to May could possibly be higher than in its report, the attorney general’s office said, because its response to a freedom of information request from The Associated Press covers only those instances in which its mass grave specialists got involved.

Federal authorities began turning up unmarked graves after beginning an investigation into the disappearance of the 43 young men following the confrontation between students and police that resulted in six confirmed deaths in Iguala, a municipality of 120,000 people 200 kilometers (160 miles) south of Mexico City.

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Of the 129 remains found in the graves, 92 were men, 20 women and the rest are undetermined, according to the information released by the attorney general’s office. Authorities listed only 16 of the remains as identified as of July 13.