Six months ago this week Omar received a panicked phone call from his friend and fellow student. “I was in my dormitory writing a paper and a friend called me in desperation from a bus. He said they were being shot by police,” Omar explained. He has not heard from his friend since.
Omar is a student at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teacher Training College of Ayotzinapa, in Guerrero state. His friend is one of 43 students who were subjected to enforced disappearance in September of 2014.
As the days and weeks passed, the Mexican authorities stalled and obfuscated. Despite worldwide attention on the issue, they have, for months, failed to properly investigate all lines of the case, especially the worrying allegations of complicity by armed forces.