Families demand Mexico reveal full details of military role in disappearance of 43 students

Thousands marched along one of Mexico City's main thoroughfares on Saturday to the National Palace, in the capital’s historic centre, to mark the 12th anniversary of the students’ disappearance from the all-male school.

"Everything points to the military," said Maria de Jesus Tlatempa, the mother of José Eduardo Bartolo Tlatempa, one of the 43, who was 19 years old when he vanished.

Tlatempa and the other fathers, mothers, uncles and siblings of the 43 led the march, which began in the shadow of Mexico City’s iconic Angel of Independence monument, ringed on Saturday by steel fencing.

The families say that the passage of time and subsequent — sometimes conflicting — investigations have failed to answer fundamental questions about what happened to the students, why and where they were ultimately taken and what role federal institutions like the military played in the tragic event.