Mexican student protesters vandalise SUV carrying mayor
Acapulco (Mexico) (AFP) - Dozens of protesting students vandalised an SUV carrying the mayor of the Mexican coastal city of Acapulco on Friday, demanding justice over the presumed murder of 43 classmates.
The protesters punctured the tires and painted the armoured vehicle with messages reading "the people are organised" and "Ayotzi lives."
The demonstrators, most of whom study at the Ayotzinapa teacher-training college attended by the missing men, blocked the road with buses as the mayor left an official event, and shouted "Justice! Justice!"
After half an hour of tension, Mayor Luis Walton Aburto exited his vehicle to speak with the demonstrators, who expressed their grievances and demanded they be allowed to protest freely.
Around 50 officers were deployed to the scene but did not intervene. Walton Aburto was travelling with a driver and several bodyguards, and was able to leave in another vehicle.
The student protesters arrived at the tourist resort after travelling some 130 kilometres (80 miles) from Ayotzinapa, making their way across Guerrero state in buses.
Some Acapulco shopping centres, which are expecting hundreds of tourists during the Christmas and New Year holiday season, rushed to place barriers at their main entrances, fearing attacks by the protesters, some of whom were hooded.
Their missing classmates disappeared on September 26, when police in the city of Iguala attacked busloads of college students, allegedly under the orders of its mayor, and handed them over to a gang.
Prosecutors believe that the young men were killed and their bodies burned by drug traffickers, although only the remains of one have been found.
The disappearance has triggered mass demonstrations across Mexico and the resignation of Guerrero's governor.
