Protesters in Mexico have taken to the streets this week, striking at universities and setting fire to government buildings as the anger surrounding the disappearance of 43 students from a rural teaching college continues to mount.
[seealso slug="thousands-march-in-mexico-to-demand-justice-for-missing-students"]
Thousands of people marched in demonstrations throughout Wednesday in Mexico, in cities including Iguala, Guadalajara and Mexico City in a "Global Day of Action for Ayotzinapa."
They demand the return of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa school in Iguala who were taken by local police after a protest on Sept. 26.
[img src="http://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Mexico-Ayotzinapa-Protest-03.jpg" caption="A woman holds a sign that says "We are all Ayotzinapa" while protesting for the return of 43 students who were taken from Ayotzinapa teacing college in Iguala, Mexico. " credit="Brett Gundlock/Boreal Collective/Mashable" alt="Mexico Ayotzinapa Protest 03"]
Wednesday's unrest came as Mexico Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam announced Iguala Mayor José Luis Abarca and his wife María de los Ángeles Pineda were wanted for arrest in connection with the kidnappings.
According to a federal investigation, Pineda ordered the police action because the protests threatened to interrupt a dinner party she was holding that evening.
After Iguala police picked up the students, Murillo Karam said, the youths were taken to a police station and then to the nearby town of Cocula. At some point they were turned over to a local gang, loaded aboard a dump truck and taken — apparently still alive — to an area on the outskirts of Iguala where mass graves have been found, he said.
He said nine mass graves have now been discovered with the remains of 30 people, none of which correspond to the missing students.
Murillo Karam said the drug gang implicated in the disappearance essentially ran Iguala, paying the mayor hundreds of thousands of dollars a month out of its profits from making opium paste to fuel the U.S. heroin market.
The investigation painted the fullest picture yet of the control that is exercised by gangs over a broad swath of Mexico's lands in Guerrero state. The Guerreros Unidos cartel's deep connections with local officials in the city of Iguala came to a head Sept. 26 when the mayor ordered municipal police to detain protesting students, who were then turned over to the drug gang.
[img src="http://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Mexico-Ayotzinapa-Protest-13.jpg" caption="A protester holds a sign that reads "Phony government that murders students" in a march demanding the return of 43 missing students in Mexico City, Mexico. " credit="Brett Gundlock/Boreal Collective/Mashable" alt="Mexico Ayotzinapa Protest 13"]
Wednesday's demonstrations were the biggest since the students disappeared, marking growing outrage at the depth of government corruption and the perceived failure of officials to take action.
The protests came after universities and other institutions announced a two-day strike Tuesday. More than a dozen colleges in Mexico City and schools in several other major cities are participating in the strike, set for Wednesday and Thursday.
[img src="http://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Mexico-Ayotzinapa-Protest-16.jpg" caption="A man holds a candlelit handout reading "Alive they took them, alive we want them back," during a protest calling for the return of 43 missing students in Mexico City, Mexico. " credit="Brett Gundlock/Boreal Collective/Mashable" alt="Mexico Ayotzinapa Protest 16"]
The march culminated in a candlelight vigil in Zocalo square in Mexico City, where demonstrators read the missing students names and called for national reform.
Demonstrators chanted what has become the slogan of the protests: "They were taken alive, and we want them back alive."
Additional reporting by the Associated Press