UN experts welcome results from independent probe into Mexico's missing students

United Nations human rights experts welcomed Wednesday the results of an independent investigation into the plight of 43 students missing and believed massacred in Mexico last fall.

In a statement issued by the UN in the Mexican capital, the international body's Special Rapporteurs "encouraged the Mexican government to implement all the recommendations" contained in the "Ayotzinapa Report," which was released Sunday by the Inter-American human rights commission (IACHR) and its group of independent experts.

All 43 students were enrolled at a rural teachers college, the Raul Isidro Burgos in the town of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, which is known for its leftist activism.

While the report debunks the government's official version of the events that led to the students' disappearance in the southern state of Guerrero in late September 2014, the UN experts "acknowledged the political disposition of the Mexican government, expressed by its support for the creation of the (independent commission), its willingness to expand the group's mandate so that it can complete its work, and its recognition of the report as 'fundamental to the investigation' of the events."

The UN experts "underscored the report's conviction that 'the 43 students were not incinerated at a garbage dump in Cocula,' as claimed in the official version of the events."

They also "agreed with the report's conclusion that there needs to be a 'general rethinking' of the investigation, based on the deficiencies" of the official probe.

Mexico's Attorney General's Office (PGR) claimed the students had been killed and incinerated over two days (Sept. 26 and 27) at a garbage dump near the Guerrero town of Iguala, by members of a local drug trafficking gang who believed the youth were from a rival criminal ring.

That version was widely seen as an attempt to minimize the role of local, state and federal authorities in the mass abduction, torture and execution of the students, a crime that focused world attention on Mexico's spiraling crime rates.

"In light of the new findings, the UN experts maintained that the investigation ... should be exhaustive and dig deeper into the different degrees of participation of all the authorities, who by their action or inaction were involved in the events," the UN said.

The UN experts included Special Rapporteur on torture Juan E. Mendez; on summary, arbitrary and extrajudicial executions, Christof Heynes; and the working group on enforced and involuntary disappearances, Ariel Dulitzky, Bernard Duhaime, Jeremy J. Sarkin, Tae-Ung Baik and Jasminka Dzumhur. Endit