MEXICO CITY — The United Nation’s human rights commissioner on Thursday accused Mexico’s military of obstructing an expert investigation into the disappearance of 43 students in a bloody incident that shook that country nearly nine years ago.
The students, from a teachers’ college in Ayotzinapa, were intercepted by local police and federal military forces while traveling through the southwestern city of Iguala in September 2014. An expert panel investigating the incident said earlier this week that it had not received adequate access to information and that the experts had no choice but to withdraw from the investigation and leave Mexico.
“Since its creation, the GIEI has established the need to receive exhaustive and truthful information from all the authorities to clarify the facts of the forced disappearance of the students and other serious violations of human rights. Within this framework, the OHCHR deeply regrets that, despite the political will expressed by the federal government at the highest level, the Armed Forces have not provided all the information requested,” the OHCHR statement reads.