MEXICO CITY ― Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto met with parents of 43 missing teachers college students for the first time since they disappeared, apparently handed over to a drug gang by city police more than a month ago.
Relatives of the missing have grown increasingly frustrated at the pace of the investigation of the Sept. 26 police attack in the city of Iguala, which also left six dead. The case has shaken the image of improving security that the government has sought to project since Pena Nieto took office in 2012.
After meeting for about six hours inside the Los Pinos presidential residence on Wednesday, parents said they told Pena Nieto they didn’t have confidence in the investigation, though they said the government agreed to create a commission to monitor the case.
“We are not going to trust the words of the president nor the commitments that were made public … until they present the 43 students to us alive,” Felipe de la Cruz, one of the parents, said at a news conference late Wednesday.
The commission is to be made up of both government officials and parents, providing daily updates on the investigation. In televised remarks, Pena Nieto said the government also agreed to provide greater support for rural teachers colleges as well as to the families of those who were killed or wounded in the attack, and to redouble efforts to determine the students’ whereabouts.
“There will be a renewed search plan,” Pena Nieto said.
The relatives came to Mexico City from the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa in Guerrero state, where the missing students were enrolled.
