Relatives of 43 Missing Mexican Students Visit America: ‘I Will Not Stop Searching’

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ALAMO, Texas — Fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers of 43 kidnapped education students refuse to give up in their quest to find their loved ones alive despite what they call an ongoing effort on the part of the Mexican government to brush aside the case. Under the moto of “they took them alive, alive we want them” the relatives continue their quest for answers and justice.

As they fight on, the relatives of some of the students have set off in a caravan across America raising awareness and sharing with the public, the version of events that Mexico’s mainstream media refuses to air, Breitbart Texas previously reported.

The caravan stopped in the border city of McAllen Texas where they held a peaceful protest outside of the Mexican consulate; however, the consular officials never came out of their office to acknowledge the group.

After the protest and a public appearance, two of the relatives in the caravan granted Breitbart Texas an exclusive interview about the fight for answers against all odds.

Clemente Rodriguez, the father of 19-year-old Christian Alfonso Rodriguez, recalled the fateful day when his son went missing. In late September the group of students had been going from town to town asking for donations in order to travel to Mexico City for a large protest about civil rights and access to education, Rodriguez said.

In the town of Iguala, the wife of Mayor Jose Luis Abarca was holding a press event and was led to believe that the students were going to ruin her event. That is where parents claim the official version differs, the father said.

Under orders of Abarca and his wife, police officers from Iguala, Cocula, along with federal police officer and some soldiers, didn’t try to stop the bus but instead ambushed them and opened up with their weapons. The students were then taken and have never been heard from again, a visually saddened Rodriguez said

When the relatives reached out to authorities, they were met with a wall of bureaucracy. It wasn’t until international news outlets began to put pressure on the Mexican government, that they conducted a flawed investigation with planted evidence to make the case go away, Anayeli Guerrero De La Cruz, the sister of 20-year-old Jhosivani Guerrero De La Cruz said to Breitbart Texas.

“We are not just saying this. The information we have comes from the various teams of experts that have been helping us in the case,” Rodriguez said in Spanish. “Even a forensic team from Argentina has disproven the evidence in the case.”

As Breitbart Texas previously reported, Mexico’s former Attorney General Jose Murillo Kharam publicly announced that the students had been executed by a drug cartel and their remains had been incinerated in an open air pit. Soon after the claim was made, experts began to question the government’s version of events since the facts didn’t add up. Those claims were largely ignored by mainstream media outlets like Televisa and TV Azteca.

One investigator claimed that the evidence at the open air pit doesn’t match with the kind of evidence that a massive open air pit used to incinerate 43 bodies would have left, Breitbart Texas previously reported.

“They (Mexican investigators) planted the evidence,” Guerrero De La Cruz said in Spanish. “Some of those little bones that they planted were in fact chicken and cow bones. The forensic team told us, the evidence didn’t match.”

Despite the cesspool of corruption that Mexico has become, the American government continues to send weapons and equipment to Mexican authorities to help fight cartels, however that help is going to the wrong hands, Guerrero De La Cruz said.

“Those same cops and soldiers that they are giving weapons to are the same ones that are killing us,” she said. “That is not the right way to help. This country does not need more weapons when you have people living in straw huts.”

As they continue their trip across America, both Rodriguez and Guerrero De La Cruz are prepared to tell and retell the story of their loved ones despite the pain that those memories carry. If the message helps bring light to the worsening conditions in Mexico it would all have been worth it.

“I will not stop searching for my son,” Rodriguez said. “There is no concrete evidence that he is dead. I will continue fighting and if anything does happen to me I blame the Mexican government who has tried to silence us from the beginning.”

Follow Ildefonso Ortiz on Twitter and on Facebook.

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