Forensic experts have identified one of 43 missing Mexican students from charred remains found in a landfill, an official has said, partly solving a case that has roiled the government for weeks.
Authorities sent badly burned remains to an Austrian medical university last month after a police-backed criminal gang confessed to killing the students and incinerating their bodies in the southern state of Guerrero.
The students were allegedly seized by local police in the town of Iguala in September and given to a criminal gang.
“One of the pieces (of bones) belongs to one of the students,” a federal official reportedly said, without providing further details.
The students’ disappearance has triggered widespread protests across Mexico against corruption and violence.
“If (the government) thinks that, because one of our boys’ DNA was identified, we will sit and cry, we want to tell them that they’re wrong,” said Felipe de la Cruz, father of a missing student.
“We will keep fighting until we find the other 42.”
If all 43 are confirmed dead, it would rank among the worst mass murders in a drug war that has killed more than 80,000 people and left 22,000 others missing since 2006 in Mexico.