Parents of missing Mexican students seek help in US

A group of family members, lawyers and colleagues of the 43 students of a teacher training institute in Mexico, missing since September 26, is touring the US to involve international organisations in the search for the students.

Starting on Monday, the Caravan 43 group of protesters will visit 43 US cities over a month, and seek help from organisations including Amnesty International and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) as part of efforts to determine what happened to the students, Spanish news agency Efe reported.

According to Mexican authorities, members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel in alliance with corrupt police officers murdered and burned the bodies of the students in a garbage dump in Guerrero.

However, the victims' families refuse to accept this version of events.

Outraged by the action of Mexican authorities to shelve the case, the group protested on Monday in San Antonio, McAllen and El Paso in Texas, targeting in particular Latin-American communities living in the US.

"Mexico believes in forgetting. The press, the government and other public and private spaces have stifled the voices of the movement. It seems as if the problem has ceased to exist when, in fact, it has not been resolved," said Omar Garcia, a student who escaped from police on September 26, before the students disappeared.

The coordinator of Caravan 43, Julio Cesar Guerrero told Efe that besides meeting Amnesty International and IACHR, it has also arranged to meet the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Democratic Congressmen of Hispanic descent.

In Los Angeles, the group will meet members of the California Federation of Teachers, one of the most influential trade unions in the US.

The families of the missing students hope that these efforts will elucidate the truth about their loved ones and help them to find closure.