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Protesters demand "proof" in Mexico mystery

MEXICO CITY -- Protesters in Mexico City on Monday marked four months since the disappearance of 43 rural teachers' college students in southern Mexico.

Demonstrators streamed through the streets from four starting points to converge at the capital's massive main square, the Zocalo. They brandished portraits of the missing, and signs demanding their return along with punishment for those responsible.

Prosecutors have said police kidnapped the students after orders from Iguala's then mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, on Sept. 26 in the southern state of Guerrero and handed them over to drug gang members, who killed them and burned the bodies.

Violence escalates in Mexico Protests 01:22

Protesters said Monday the government has failed to clear up doubts about the students' fate.

Student Omar Garcia said "there is no proof that convinces us that it happened like that."

The additional failure to conclusively identify the students' remains marks another setback for the Mexican government, which has struggled with widespread, often violent protests -- such as the one on Monday -- and with relatives' skepticism about the official belief they are dead.

Mexican prosecutors said earlier this month that an Austrian forensics lab had been unable to find any more DNA that could be used by conventional means to identify charred remains that might be those of the missing students, but said they have authorized a final, unconventional effort.

The Attorney General's Office said the University of Innsbruck reported that "excessive heat" damaged the mitochondrial DNA in fragments of teeth and bones, "at least to the point that normal methods cannot be used to successfully analyze them."

Authorities sent only 16 sets of remains to Austria, saying the rest were so badly deteriorated there was no chance of identifying them.

The final technique that could be used to identify the remains is known as massively parallel sequencing, and includes the distinct risk that testing may destroy the samples without obtaining any useful information.

"The main risk is that the DNA extracted may be destroyed" without yielding any usable results, prosecutors cited the university as saying.

Prosecutors said, however, they had authorized the new round of testing, which the university expects to take approximately three months.

Vidulfo Rosales, a lawyer representing the families of the missing students, said prosecutors should have consulted the families before making that decision.

"If these tests are done on the bone fragments, there could be practically nothing left," Rosales told local media. "This is going to have an impact on the parents' belief system. ... In rural tradition, mourning is highly symbolic, highly important."

Amnesty International also entered the dispute last week, calling on the Mexican government to investigate the army in the disappearance of the students.

The London-based rights group faulted soldiers for not helping the students.

Parents of the missing students and their supporters have questioned why the army did nothing to stop the abductions that occurred near the local base. Authorities have said the army acted correctly in not intervening.

More than 70 people are currently being held in relation to the case.

Amnesty International said there were indications "there is a level of protection and cover-ups of crimes committed by the army as part of a policy of militarizing the country."

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