BSS
  26 Sep 2025, 10:06

Mexico City military barracks targeted in protest over student disappearances

MEXICO CITY, Sept 26, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Protesters rammed a truck into the gates of a military barracks in Mexico City on Thursday during a demonstration over the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 students a decade ago, news footage showed.

Hooded men reversed the truck into the gates and then set it on fire during the protest to mark the 11th anniversary of the disappearance of the students, who had been training to be teachers, from the southern town of Ayotzinapa.

No injuries were reported in the truck ramming and the barracks remained secure during the protest.

The fate of the students has haunted Mexico since their disappearance on the night of September 26, 2014, in violence-plagued southern Guerrero state.

So far, the remains of only three students have been found and identified.

The case has become emblematic of a missing persons crisis in Mexico, where more than 120,000 people have vanished.

The students were traveling to a demonstration in Mexico City when they were intercepted.

Investigators believe they were abducted by a drug cartel with the help of corrupt police, although exactly what happened is unclear.

A truth commission in 2022 found that the army was aware of the abductions as they were unfolding.

Each year, family members and students from the victims' university demonstrate to demand justice.

In 2024, protesters used a truck to break down a gate at the government palace while then president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was holding a press conference.

The barracks vandalized on Thursday was previously targeted by protesters in 2022.