More graves found near Mexico town of missing students

Mexico City, Oct 24 (IANS/EFE) Six more clandestine graves containing human remains have been found near the Mexican town where 43 students went missing after an altercation with police a month ago, sources said.

The graves were discovered by members of a local self-defence organisation at a site called Monte Hored in Guerrero state, a lawyer for the group told Efe by telephone.

Five of the graves contain human remains and the sixth was empty "and you could see it was ready to be used", attorney Manuel Vazquez said.

"They found hair, human remains, (and) around the site were clothes with blood stains, uniforms like those worn by high school students, shoes, blankets and beer bottles," he said.

The graves were found 1.5 km from four graves discovered Oct 16 and from which bodies were recovered but they did not belong to the students.

On the night of Sep 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 in the incident, after which the students were seen being led away by police.

They have been missing ever since.

Earlier Thursday, Guerrero state Governor Angel Aguirre resigned from his post amid increasing protests over the students' disappearance and the deaths of the six others and demands that he step down.

Aguirre said he was leaving "to favour a political climate" conducive to a solution.

"The priority must be to continue with the search for the missing students and to ensure that the people responsible for these serious violations of human rights be punished," he said.

--IANS/EFE

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