Mexico says missing students not among remains found in mass grave

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – None of the 28 bodies found in a mass grave in restive southwestern Mexico belongs to a group of 43 missing students, Mexico’s attorney general said yesterday.

The students, who are feared to have been massacred by police in league with gang members, went missing in the southwestern state of Guerrero on Sept. 26.

The discovery of a series of mass graves near the town of Iguala, where the students went missing, has sent shockwaves throughout Mexico, where around 100,000 people have died in drug-related violence since 2007. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo said none of the charred remains found in the first mass grave matched genetically with the missing students.

“What I can say is that the first mass grave we found, the very first ones from where we already have results, I can say the (remains) don’t match the DNA of the families of these young people,” he said.

But authorities had found another mass grave near the site, Murillo said, and were now checking those remains. He also said that 14 more police officers had been arrested following the earlier arrests of at least 22.