Peña Nieto: Responsibles for the disappearance of 43 students will be punished

The president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, pledged on Monday to punish those responsible for the disappearance of 43 students in Iguala, on an alleged joint action of local police and drug traffickers.

Authorities are still investigating whether among the 28 corpses found over the weekend in clandestine pits there are bodies of the youths, whose families insist they are alive and require the president to find them.

In a brief message to media at the National Palace, Pena Nieto said on Monday morning that these actions are “outrageous, painful and unacceptable. On the rule of law this does not fit (…) the slightest loophole for impunity,” said the president.

He also pledged the support of his government to solve the case that shocked the country and generated claims from the United Nations Office to the Mexican authorities.

Students have been missing since the night of September 26, when police and drug traffickers shot, for still unknown reasons, against several buses which students had taken in the town of Iguala, 200 km from the capital.