Mexican Armed Forces Facilitated Ayotzinapa Disappearances: Panel

27/07/2023

An independent panel investigating the 2014 disappearance of 43 Mexican college students has issued a final report, implicating the country’s security forces, but offering few definitive answers about the students’ fate. 

The kidnapping case—known as the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa 43—has become the largest human rights scandal in modern Mexican history. But nearly a decade on, accountability and a clear understanding of what happened remain elusive. 

The panel—appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—said it faced consistent opposition and deception from Mexico’s security agencies, which have long faced scrutiny over alleged rights abuses and collaboration with criminal groups. 

Human rights advocates calling for justice in the Ayotzinapa case have also had their phones targeted by Pegasus spyware, a type of surveillance software which is supposed to be only available to government forces. 

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