MEXICO CITY – Mexico marked Thursday’s 104th anniversary of its 1910 Revolution with mainly peaceful protests over the abduction and apparent murder of 43 students, though some militants blocked roads and hurled Molotov cocktails at police.The most significant confrontation took place in Mexico City, where some 200 hooded protesters battled police in an attempt to reach the capital’s international airport and shut it down.
Repulsed by cops in full riot gear, the protesters retreated to a city square to prepare for marches set for later Thursday.
From San Cristobal de las Casas in the southern state of Chiapas came reports of youths smashing shop windows and setting off homemade bombs.
Authorities in the southwestern state of Guerrero, scene of the Sept. 26 abduction of the students, saw more than 2,000 people temporarily shut down a stretch of the expressway that links Mexico City with the Pacific resort of Acapulco.
In the northern state of Chihuahua, bordering Texas, around 300 students and teachers disrupted a parade for the anniversary of the revolution with a protest on behalf of the missing students.
The largest university in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second city, suspended classes Thursday in solidarity with the 43 students.
The 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa Normal School, a teacher’s college, were detained by police on the night of Sept. 26 and handed over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, which killed them and burned the bodies to eliminate all traces of the victims, Mexican authorities say, citing statements by suspects in the case.
But the parents of the missing young people say they won’t accept that explanation without solid proof.
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