IGUALA, Mexico (AP) — Ulises Martínez remains to be uncomfortable on this metropolis, despite the fact that it has been 10 years since 43 of his fellow college students from a rural academics faculty had been kidnapped right here.
Martínez was in his third 12 months on the Rural Regular College at Ayotzinapa, an institute identified for its radical social justice activism about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Iguala within the southern Mexico state of Guerrero.
The scholars who disappeared on Sept. 26, 2014, had commandeered 5 buses in Iguala that they deliberate to drive to Mexico Metropolis to attend the commemoration of the bloodbath of almost 300 individuals by authorities forces throughout a scholar protest in 1968.
The Mexican authorities has decided that the Rural Regular College college students had been attacked by safety forces linked to an area drug cartel, however many questions on what occurred to them stay.
Martínez has reconstructed a timeline as a part of his private dedication to search out justice. Here’s what he remembers:
9:30 p.m., Sept. 26, 2014
At Ayotzinapa, college students get phrase that their classmates have issues in Iguala and head for town in two vans.
10 p.m.
The freeway is empty, however at an intersection about 16 kilometers (10 miles) from Iguala, armed males in a pickup truck block the street. “Seeing that, we knew it wasn’t going to be straightforward,” Martínez stated.
The scholar who’s driving hits the gasoline and drives across the roadblock. No pictures are fired.
10:20 p.m.
On the street into Iguala, they see one of many 5 buses their classmates had taken. It has been torn aside. Its tires have been punctured, its home windows damaged and its baggage compartments opened. In addition they see a handful of first-year college students working away. After they flip round to select them up, they’re gone. On the identical time, they obtain determined telephone calls from different attacked college students who attempt to describe the place they’re in order that Martínez and his companions can go choose them up.
10:30 p.m.
Martínez and the others arrive on the terminal the place the scholars had first taken the buses. They ask taxi drivers there to carry them to a spot that matches the scholars’ descriptions, however the drivers refuse, saying they have been forbidden from going there.
11 p.m.
Driving round downtown Iguala, the scholars discover three buses, all shot up. Some college students are there and crying. “They couldn’t comprehend what had occurred,” Martínez stated.
Martínez climbs aboard one of many buses, the place he finds puddles of blood and seats pocked with bullet holes.
“It seemed actually unhealthy,” he stated. “We had been ready for authorities, however nobody arrived.”
Confusion reigns. College students guard the positioning, nervous that somebody will attempt to take away the buses or choose up the bullet casings. They name an area information outlet.
12:30 a.m., Sept. 27, 2014
Throughout an impromptu information convention, Martínez walks over to take a photograph of a puddle of blood left from the place witnesses stated a scholar was shot within the head. A crimson car rolls up slowly, and a few males wearing black get out.
“One kneeled,” Martínez stated. “First he fired into the air after which he began capturing point-blank.”
Martínez freezes in shock. A information reporter journeys over him and so they each fall to the bottom.
Martínez then hides behind a bus wheel. Somebody shouts to run. One scholar runs off alone and one other is shot within the jaw and begins to bleed closely.
When the capturing stops, a lady tells them to take him to a close-by hospital. “They’re going to kill you,” she says.
Martínez and his companions will later be taught that two college students had been killed on the scene.
1 a.m.
The scholars enter a small clinic, the place nurses enable a wounded scholar to sit down however do not deal with him.
Martínez and a classmate who hails from Iguala climb to the clinic’s roof to see in the event that they’ve been adopted. Martínez calls his father to say goodbye in case he doesn’t survive.
Two military vehicles pull up. Martínez’s classmate needs to leap off the roof. Martínez says no, will probably be safer at a close-by military base. However his classmate says that is not true.
Troopers, drug traffickers, police, “They’re all the identical,” the opposite scholar warns.
The troopers collect everybody downstairs. They inform the scholars to determine themselves in a pocket book, warning them to not give faux names. The troopers then obtain a name and depart, however say the police are on their strategy to choose the scholars up.
1:15 a.m.
The scholars flee earlier than police arrive. They persuade a cab driver to take their wounded classmate to the hospital, whereas the remainder run down the road, finally discovering a home the place 30 college students who survived the assault in Iguala have taken refuge.
“I hid between a water tank and a washer,” Martínez stated. “I discovered a picket rosary and put it on.”
A woman strikes Martínez and 5 others to a different home to cover. Nobody sleeps.
5 a.m.
College students give statements to state investigators. One heads out to search for the classmates who’re nonetheless lacking.
A ugly {photograph} of Julio Cesár Mondragón, the coed who ran off alone when gunfire broke out, begins to flow into: His face has been ripped off.
9 a.m.
Martínez is shipped to regulate injured classmates on the hospital. He stays for 4 days, sleeping on a sheet of cardboard on the ground.
The night time of terror is over, however a brand new nightmare is about to start: Martínez and others will quickly discover out the complete, terrifying scope of the assault. And they’ll spend the subsequent 10 years preventing to search out solutions.