Iguala mass kidnapping

On September 26, 2014, forty-three male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College disappeared after being forcibly abducted in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, in what has been called one of Mexico's most infamous human rights cases. They were allegedly taken into custody by local policemen from Iguala and Cocula in collusion with organized crime, with later evidence implicating the Mexican Army. Officials have concluded there is no indication the students are alive, but as of 2025, only three students' remains have been identified and their deaths confirmed.

While tens of thousands have gone missing during the Mexican drug war, the 43 missing have become a cause célèbre due to the persistent activism and demands for an explanation by their parents and relatives. Official obstacles put in the way of independent investigations of the case have also provoked social unrest and international protests including protests leading to the resignation of the governor of Guerrero.

The students were preparing to commemorate the anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, following a tradition where they commandeered several buses to travel to Mexico City. The police set up roadblocks and fired weapons to intercept the students, but what happened during and after the stopping of their buses remains unclear. Among the many explanations for the students' disappearance include that the buses hijacked by the students contained drug cartel products or that a rival cartel had infiltrated the student group.

An early investigation—dubbed "the historic truth"—under Mexican Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam of the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto, concluded corrupt municipal police from Iguala and neighboring towns, following orders from the local mayor, had turned 43 of the students over to the local drug cartel, Guerreros Unidos ("United Warriors"), who killed the students and destroyed their remains, and that Federal police and military played no part in the killings. This was disputed by some experts, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), who found the findings "scientifically impossible".