International
Parents of students protest in front of military headquarters in Mexico
September 22 |
Fathers, mothers and relatives of the missing normalista teachers in Ayotzinapa in September 2014 along with students from a rural school in the state of Guerrero, set up a protest camp on Thursday in front of Military Camp 1, in Mexico City, capital of the country.
Sources close to the protesters revealed that the concentration could remain in place until next Monday, when a meeting is scheduled at the Ministry of the Interior (Interior Ministry), or until Tuesday, the day that commemorates nine years since the disappearance of the 43 students.
The plaintiffs set up a tent where they will be camping in front of this complex as an expression of their demand to the Army of the North American country to deliver the necessary information to find the whereabouts of the more than 40 missing students.
Mario González, father of César Manuel González, one of the 43 missing students, stated: “We are at the Campo Militar 1 battalion, where the information of all the battalions of the country is located.”
“They are nothing more than criminals, cowards with weapons”, sentenced the father, in clear reference not only to the events of September 26, 2014, but to the whole installation of elements to protect the Army facilities where they arrived that includes barbed wire, barricades and hundreds of armed soldiers.
This 2023 will commemorate the ninth anniversary of the event that generated one of the most emblematic cases in the judicial history of Mexico, treasured as a great pending issue by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who promised to resolve it before the end of his term (October 2024).
Last Wednesday, the relatives met with the President and when leaving the meeting they explained their demand that the Army should finish providing the necessary documentation on the case in order to find the whereabouts of the students once and for all.
The relatives were disappointed by the president’s refusal, who assured that all the information had already been handed over, although they claim the existence of these missing documents in what was handed over by the Army to the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
The GIEI recently withdrew from the country because it was unable to make progress in the investigations due to the obstacles imposed by the lack of collaboration of the Armed Forces in the investigation. The Truth Commission classified the event as a “State crime” due to the participation of authorities at all levels, including the Armed Forces.
The government of López Obrador has repeatedly denied the accusation made by supporters of former President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) and has defended the so-called “historical truth”, which maintains that corrupt police detained the students and handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos cartel, which murdered and incinerated them in the Cocula landfill.
International
Israel says 136 food aid boxes airdropped into Gaza by six nations
The Israeli military announced on Sunday that 136 boxes of food aid were airdropped into Gaza by the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Germany, and Belgium.
“In recent hours, six countries conducted air drops of 136 aid packages containing food for residents in the southern and northern Gaza Strip,” read the statement, which added that the operation was coordinated by COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Israeli military emphasized that they will “continue working to improve the humanitarian response alongside the international community” and reiterated their stance to “refute false allegations of deliberate famine in Gaza.”
The announcement comes as UN agencies warn Gaza faces an imminent risk of famine. More than one in three residents go days without eating, and other nutrition indicators have dropped to their worst levels since the conflict began.
The agencies also noted the difficulty of “collecting reliable data in current conditions, as Gaza’s health systems —already devastated by nearly three years of conflict— are collapsing.”
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry reported on Sunday that hospitals in the enclave recorded six deaths from hunger and malnutrition on Saturday, all of them adults.
International
Seven inmates dead, 11 injured after violent riot in Veracruz prison
Seven inmates were killed and eleven others injured in a violent riot and clash inside a penitentiary in the Mexican state of Veracruz, local authorities reported on Sunday.
The disturbance began on Saturday afternoon at the Social Reintegration Center in the port city of Tuxpan, in northern Veracruz, when inmates staged a protest over extortion and assaults allegedly carried out by members of the criminal group known as Grupo Sombra.
The protesting prisoners clashed with another group of inmates and set fires inside and outside the facility, seizing control of the prison for more than 12 hours.
During the takeover, the rioters released several videos, including one showing four prisoners —believed to be members of Grupo Sombra— accusing them of being behind the violence and extortion inside the prison.
It wasn’t until Sunday morning that elements of the Mexican Army, the National Guard, and local police forces managed to enter the prison and regain control. The state’s Public Security Secretariat confirmed that around 9:00 a.m. local time a coordinated operation restored full order and reestablished control of the facility.
Authorities also reported that the fires set by inmates were fully extinguished.
Official figures confirmed the “tragic” deaths of seven inmates and injuries to eleven people, who are now receiving medical treatment in various regional hospitals.
This is the second deadliest riot in Veracruz in the past eight years. In 2018, a violent uprising at the La Toma medium-security prison left seven people dead (six police officers and one unidentified man) and at least 22 injured (15 officers and seven inmates).
The riot follows the kidnapping and killing of retired teacher and taxi driver Irma Hernández, a case that shocked the entire country and was attributed to Grupo Sombra. Images of Hernández kneeling, surrounded by armed men in the municipality of Álamo, sparked nationwide outrage. She was murdered after refusing to pay extortion demands from the criminal organization.
Despite these incidents, Veracruz has not seen a spike in the daily homicide average. In fact, there has been a 1.6% decrease in homicides in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System.
In 2023, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) reported 3,094 incidents in Mexican prisons —an 18.5% increase from the previous year— resulting in 100 deaths and 892 injuries.
International
Study finds COVID-19 vaccines prevented 2.5 million deaths worldwide
COVID-19 vaccines prevented an estimated 2,533,000 deaths worldwide between 2020 and 2024, according to an international study led by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Italy and Stanford University in the United States, published in the journal JAMA Health Forum. Researchers calculated that one death was prevented for every 5,400 doses administered.
The analysis also found that the vaccines saved 14.8 million years of life, equivalent to one year of life gained for every 900 doses given.
The study, coordinated by Professor Stefania Boccia, revealed that 82% of the lives saved were people vaccinated before becoming infected with the virus, and 57% of deaths avoided occurred during the Omicron wave. In addition, 90% of the beneficiaries were adults over 60 years old.
“This is the most comprehensive analysis to date, based on global data and fewer assumptions about the evolution of the pandemic,” explained Boccia and researcher Angelo Maria Pezzullo.
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