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Masked men broke down a side door of the National Palace in Mexico City

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Valentina Alpide / AFP

In Mexico, masked demonstrators broke into the government headquarters.

The incident occurred amid protests against the slow investigation into the kidnapping of 43 students almost a decade ago.

The masked men used an off-road vehicle to ram a side door of the National Palace in Mexico City and briefly entered the historic building.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador held his daily press conference there.

According to media reports, security forces used tear gas, drove out the demonstrators and prevented others from entering.

Relatives of the disappeared students have set up a protest camp in front of the National Palace and are demanding a meeting with López Obrador.

They accuse the president of breaking his promise to find the students and claim that the military is withholding documents important to the investigation.

López Obrador called the protests a “provocation” against his government.

Students declared dead

September 26th marks the tenth anniversary of the so-called Ayotzinapa case.

Corrupt police officers kidnapped the students from the Ayotzinapa teachers' college in the southern city of Iguala and handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos crime syndicate.

The background to the crime has not yet been fully clarified.

Only bone parts of three of the young men were found and identified.

In 2022, the students were declared dead.

Soldiers are also said to have been involved in the crime.

At the end of 2016, journalist Anabel Hernández published new findings in a book that attribute decisive involvement to an infantry battalion in Iguala.

"The Army was kept abreast of what happened that night from beginning to end," Hernández said at the time.

For example, special ammunition was found at the crime scene that only the military used.

hba/dpa