Mexico Protesters Torch Local Government Headquarters

{Enraged teachers and students demand the return of 43 students who disappeared after a gang-connected police attack on Sept. 26}

Hundreds of students and teachers smashed windows and set fires inside a state capital building in southern Mexico on Monday, as fury erupted over the disappearance of 43 young people believed abducted by local police linked to a drug cartel.

The protesters called for the 43 students from a rural teachers’ college in Guerrero state, missing since Sept. 26, to be returned alive, even though fears have grown that 10 newly discovered mass graves could contain their bodies.

AP photographs showed smoke billowing from the government building in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, and flames licking from office windows. Firefighters battled the blaze.

Jose Villanueva Manzanarez, spokesman for Guerrero’s government, said the protesting members of a teachers’ union initially tried to get into the state congress in Chilpancingo but were repelled by anti-riot police. They then headed to the state government palace.

With the support of hundreds of students from the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college, the teachers blockaded the capital building, attacking it with

Agencies