Federal Forces Take Over 13 Mexican Cities Near Where 43 Student-Teachers Disappeared

Federal security forces are taking control of 13 cities in an effort to find the 43 students who disappeared nearly a month ago in southern Mexico, a high-level official said Monday.

“The Federal Police, with the support of the Mexican army, will be the institution in charge of providing public security in these areas,” National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said in a press conference.

“Irregular situations have been identified in some municipal police departments,” Rubido said.

On the night of Sept. 26, police in the town of Iguala fired shots at a group of Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School trainee teachers. Six people were killed and 25 others wounded, while 43 students remain missing.

Authorities suspect that the Guerreros Unidos gang conspired with municipal police in Iguala and the neighboring town of Cocula in the abduction of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School, a teacher-training facility.

“The government of the republic will take over public safety tasks” in the cities of Apaxtla de Castrejon, Arcelia, Buenavista de Cuellar, Coyuca de Catalan, General Canuto A. Neri, Ixcateopan de Cuauhtemoc, Pilcaya, Pungarabato, San Miguel Totolapan, Taxco de Alarcon, Teloloapan and Tlapehuala, all in Guerrero state, and Ixtapan de la Sal, located in Mexico state, Rubido said.

Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado, the reputed boss of the Guerreros Unidos criminal organization, has been arrested, officials said last Friday.

The Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, a prominent priest and human rights activist, is scheduled to give a statement to federal prosecutors on Monday, providing investigators with information shared with him by several witnesses about the students’ disappearance.

Solalinde told MVS Radio that he would give his statement at 2:00 p.m. or 3:00 p.m. and was scheduled to meet with Attorney General Jesus Murillo on Thursday.

Solalinde, known for his advocacy on behalf of undocumented Central American migrants, said last Friday that an eyewitness told him the students were burned alive, but he refused to provide information about his source since the person’s “life is in danger.”

Published in Latino Daily News