The disappearance of 43 Mexican students was state-sponsored, truth commission reports

In 2014, when 43 Mexican students disappeared, many called for the shocking event to be investigated. Now, a government truth commission in Mexico has deemed the disappearance a “crime of the state” that involved every layer of the government. 

The commission deemed that the government’s “actions, omissions and participation allowed for the disappearance and execution of the students, as well as the murder of six other people.”

Creating the truth commission was a central campaign promise of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Now that preliminary conclusions have been made, the government has also revealed that it has issued arrest warrants for 33 former officials linked to the case. 

The commission also confirmed that the students were not incinerated at a landfill as the previous administration had claimed. The remains of only three students have ever been found but there is no indication that any of them are alive. 

Another breakthrough discovery in the report is that the military was also involved in the disappearance. It was found that a military informant embedded themself among the students, which allowed the military to track the students and execute the disappearance.