PRESENTATION OUTLINE
September 26: A group of roughly 120 students from the Ayotzinapa Normal School onear Tixtla, Guerrero, enter the city of Iguala to protest education reforms and raise money to attend an upcoming demonstration in Mexico City. They eventually commandeer, or "borrow," three coaches from a bus station. Mayor Jose Luis Abarca allegedly orders police stop and detain the students after they attempt to disrupt a public reception being held that evening to bolster his wife's political ambitions.
At about 8:30 PM, Iguala municipal police and other armed men surround and ambush the three buses carrying the students. As dozens of them disperse and escape into neighboring streets, dozens of others are grabbed and loaded onto police vehicles.
At about midnight, as other officials and news reporters gather at the scene, another convoy of armed men begin firing at the buses. Two students are killed that night, as well as three bystanders: a bus driver, a woman in a taxi, and a 15-year-old soccer player.
September 27: The body of a fourth student, the sixth confirmed victim of the attack, is discovered. Julio Cesar Mondragon, a 22-year-old father from Mexico City, is found with his facial skin and eyes removed — a cartel-style execution. Survivors of the attacks and others attempt to locate the students who were taken away at jails and police stations, but they are nowhere to be found.
The 43 normalistas from Ayotzinapa, all young men early into their college careers, are declared missing by their classmates and parents.
September 28: Authorities arrest 22 Iguala municipal police officers for their involvement in the attacks, allegedly carried out with the Guerreros Unidos cartel. The officers' weapons show signs of being recently used, and 19 of the officers test positive for gunpowder residue.
September 29: In a radio interview, Abarca declares that he has no information about the case and denies that he ordered police to attack the buses. He says he had initially heard that masked young men were disturbing the peace in downtown Iguala. "These young men always provoke the authorities," he says.
September 30: Mayor Abarca requests a 30-day leave of absence, theoretically to avoid compromising the investigation into the police attack. During his statements, he says that he will support every effort to locate and prosecute those responsible, "whomever they may be."
October 1: Governor Angel Aguirre orders Jose Luis Abarca to "present" himself to authorities, but he is nowhere to be found.
October 4: Forensics teams locate four mass graves that could potentially hold the remains of the missing students. Authorities initially declare that 28 bodies are found there.
October 6: In a VICE News report, Ayotzinapa students describe the attack of September 26 and explain how customary the practice of hijacking commercial buses has become for them, as normal schools are notoriously neglected by the Mexican education ministry.
For the first time, Peña Nieto directly addresses the Ayotzinapa crisis in a national address. "Mexican society, and the families of the young students who are sadly missing, rightly demand clarification of the facts and that justice is done," he says.
October 8: The first large-scale demonstration against the Iguala attacks and the students' disappearances occurs in Mexico City. Ayotzinapa students lead the march.
October 10: The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights releases a statement calling the Iguala attacks a "crucial test" for Mexico's government as it confronts mounting evidence of human-rights failures and abuses in the aftermath of the September 26 shootings.
"What happened in Guerrero is absolutely reprehensible and unacceptable," the statement says. "It is not tolerable that these kind of events happen, and even less so in a state respectful of the rule of law."
October 11: The state government announces that some of the bodies discovered in the first set of mass graves do not belong to the missing students, alarming the public that clandestine burial sites linked to drug-war violence can be found throughout Guerrero.
October 12: A survivor of the police attack tells VICE News that the armed men who shot upon the students "looked like state police, because of how they were equipped, and they told us, 'Sons of bitches, you're getting the fuck out of here! Get on your buses and get the hell out, you're not welcome in this city!' "
October 13: Dissident teachers, normalistas, and other masked individuals storm the statehouse in Guerrero's capital, Chilpancingo, holding hundreds of state employees and civilians hostage inside the building for hours. Shortly after releasing those inside the complex, the protesters set the facade of the building on fire using Molotov cocktails.
October 16: Peña Nieto again addresses the Ayotzinapa case in public. He says that solving the case is a "priority" of the Mexican state. Students at colleges and universities across Mexico City and the country declare a two-day strike in support of Ayotzinapa.
October 17: Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam announces the arrest of Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado, the alleged leader of the Guerreros Unidos cartel. Casarrubias reportedly tells authorities that the confrontation with the Ayotzinapa Normal School students was "a casual situation."
October 22: Thousands of people take to the streets again in Mexico City and in major cities worldwide in response to the Iguala police attacks.
In Mexico City, Attorney General Murillo Karam confirms that Mayor Abarca and his wife directly ordered the attack against the students.
October 23: The governor of Guerrero, Ángel Aguirre, resigns under growing pressure from demonstrations in his state and around Mexico. "Thank you to all of Guerrerenses who accompanied me, those who gave me their confidence, and support," Aguirre tweets.
October 29: Dozens of parents and family members pile into buses to travel from Ayotzinapa to the presidential residence Los Pinos in Mexico City to meet President Enrique Peña Nieto. The meeting lasts five hours and ends inconclusively for the parents, who declare that they remain frustrated and disappointed after the meeting.
November 4: Fugitive Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and Maria de los Angeles de Pineda are arrested in a run-down house in a poor barrio in the Iztapalapa borough of Mexico City.
November 5: Another massive demonstration for the Ayotzinapa students takes place on Paseo de la Reforma and on the Zocalo main square in Mexico City. Scores of demonstrators call for the resignation of Peña Nieto and repeat the call for the return of the missing students.
November 6: In a press conference in Mexico City, top representatives of Human Rights Watch call the Ayotzinapa case the worst human-rights crisis facing Mexico since the 1968 massacre of unarmed students at Tlatelolco.
November 7: Officials announced at a press conference that the missing students were likely killed by drug cartel executioners and incinerated in a remote dump in the neighboring town of Cocula the same night that they went missing.
In taped testimonies, three men identified as the killers said they took a group of "43 or 44" young students to the dump and used diesel, gasoline, and tires to burn the students in a fire that lasted from midnight, September 26, until at least 2pm the next day.
Nov. 20: Nationwide strike
On Thursday, three caravans carrying classmates and relatives of the students are scheduled to travel to Mexico City to join what is supposed to be the largest protest yet.
TODAY protests remain, the whole country along with the rest of the world, seeks for justice and the resign of the president, who has done nothing to comfort Mexico.
