Today, September 26^th, marks the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of the 43 students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers School in Iguala, Guerrero, while they were on their way to Mexico City to participate in the mobilization of October 2^nd to commemorate the Tlateloco Massacre that took place in 1968.

A day before the fourth anniversary of the forced disappearance of the students, the parents of the 43 Ayotzinapa students and members of the Federation of Socialist Peasant Students of Mexico (FECSM) protested outside the Supreme Court stating that four years after the disappearance, the Court is the only institution that can decide whether to reopen the case or not and to create the Truth and Justice Commission.

“We are here to remind the Supreme Court that they have a commitment with the victims, and with the Mexican people, in terms of justice”, said the spokesperson of the parents of the students, Felipe de la Cruz. “The families have been living for four years under an extremely complicated situation and we demand justice”, he added.

De la Cruz said that the Supreme Court´s decision has the power to “favor or condemn the families to continue living amid suffering and anxious hope for a long time”.

According to the spokesperson, Enrique Peña Nieto´s administration “cannot be forgiven” and he added that the President will leave office “with his hands tainted with blood”. During Peña Nieto´s six years in office, 38,000 people have disappeared according to official figures of the National Record of Missing or Disappeared People, from January 2014 to September 2018. However, civil organizations looking for people buried in clandestine mass graves say that this number could be doubled.

Moreover, De la Cruz said that “we´ve been talking to Alejandro Encinas, the next Human Rights and Population Deputy Secretary”. “There are some signs of willingness and readiness to work together so that we can end this nightmare”, he added.

A week ago, a tribunal decided to overrule the resolution of the Tamaulipas court, which declared that the investigation should be restarted due to the irregularities found in the process, and ordered the creation of a Truth and Justice Commission.

The spokesperson added that the Commission should be made up by lawyers and relatives of the victims, international human rights bodies and federal prosecutors.

“Suffering is not negotiated, human lives don´t have a price, for us, the first thing we want is for our sons to appear and we don´t want handouts by the government. We demand truth and justice! Neither forgiveness nor forgetting! Until we find them! Alive you took them, alive we want them back!”, they stated during Tuesday mobilization.

Today there will be demonstrations throughout Mexico and the world, with a central march in Mexico City.