Two relatives of missing Mexican students stopped in New Orleans as part of a national tour. Last year, 43 students from a rural teachers college in the Mexican state of Guerrero were detained by local police and have not been seen since.
Anayeli Guerrero and Clemente Rodríguez spoke to a packed auditorium at Tulane University yesterday afternoon. Guerrero’s brother and Rodríguez’s son are among the 43 students who went missing after a confrontation with Mexican police in September.
Rachel Ornelas helped organize the presentation. She says the idea was born at a local event honoring the link between Caesar Chavez and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Normally she's a cultural events coordinator for Jazz Fest, who stays away from politics.
“I don’t do normally social activist work but this was really important to me, being a Mexican-American. And I wanted to be there to support mi gente,” Ornelas says.
An investigation by the Mexican government concluded that the students had been captured and killed by a gang, but no physical evidence was produced. Relatives say they want the truth.
