The Briefing:
- 853 files at stake: A federal judge ordered Mexico's Army in February to hand over 2014 intelligence records from its fusion center in Iguala; seven months later, families say the ruling has not been obeyed.
- Report due this week: President Claudia Sheinbaum denied shielding the military and said the special prosecutor, alongside the Interior Ministry, will lay out lines of inquiry, arrests and evidence before Saturday, Sept. 26.
- Twelve years on: Only three of the 43 students have been identified, eight parents have died according to the families' lawyer, and a national march is set for Saturday in Mexico City.
CHILPANCINGO, Mexico — Roughly 500 people, including mothers and fathers of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students and members of the FECSM rural student federation, marched through downtown Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state, on Tuesday, Sept. 22, with one central demand: that Mexico's Defense Ministry open its military intelligence files on the night of Sept. 26–27, 2014, in Iguala, Quadratín Guerrero reported.
The protest came four days before the 12th anniversary of the disappearances and in the same week the federal government plans to publish a report on the state of the investigation. Families fear that document will be used to bury the line of inquiry pointing at soldiers.
From El Caballito to the anti-monument, then to the military base
Marchers set off around 12:45 p.m. from the Nicolás Bravo statue, known locally as El Caballito, and wound through central streets to the +43 anti-monument on Lázaro Cárdenas Avenue. There, the names of the 43 were read aloud, parents apologized to residents for the traffic disruption, and they urged Sheinbaum to speed up the probe and jail any officials whose involvement is proven, according to Quadratín.
After the rally, protesters rode some 20 buses to the Army's 35th Military Zone and held a second rally outside the base, TV Azteca reported.
A February court order still unfulfilled
At the heart of the dispute are documents. On Feb. 19, 2026, the Fifth District Court for Administrative Matters in Mexico City ruled on an injunction case, No. 1350/2023, filed by the families themselves, and ordered the Army to turn over everything produced in 2014 by the Regional Intelligence Fusion Center (CRFI) based in Iguala. The court estimated that roughly 853 pages are missing and reasoned that gaps in the numbering suggest the records do exist, the Centro Prodh human rights group, which represents the parents, said at the time. The ruling also bars the Defense Ministry from classifying the material as secret, given the victims' and society's interest in the truth, Proceso reported.
Seven months on, the military has yet to comply, attorney Isidoro Vicario Aguilar of the Tlachinollan human rights center told El Sol de Chilpancingo. The Army's position, which Sheinbaum relayed to the families in May, is that the records either do not exist or that there is nothing left to hand over, El Diario del Noroeste noted.
UN rights office: military secrecy cannot trump the truth
At the forum that opened the week of protests, held Monday, Sept. 21, at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers' College in Tixtla, Alan García Campos of the U.N. human rights office in Mexico stressed that the international law binding Mexico leaves no room for reserving or classifying civilian or military archives in ways that obstruct the investigation, according to Proceso.
At the same gathering, families accused the government of letting the probe stall on Iguala funeral homes and the local morgue as a way to clear the Army. "At this point we are not willing to back down for crumbs," said Emiliano Navarrete Victoriano, father of missing student José Ángel Navarrete González (translated from Spanish).
The presidency: "No one is being covered up"
Earlier on Monday, at her morning news conference, Sheinbaum rejected claims that her administration is protecting the armed forces. "No one is being covered up," she said, adding that the special prosecutor's office will present this week the lines of investigation, the people detained and the supporting evidence, and that the report does not mean the case is being closed, El Informador reported. She also dismissed some of the criticism as resting on works of fiction.
Attorney General Ernestina Godoy had already said the report is finished, will be unveiled jointly with the Interior Ministry and will be presented in detail by Mauricio Pazarán, head of the special unit handling the case, according to La Jornada.
A former governor in custody, soldiers still at large
The most visible courtroom development of recent weeks involves state-level officials. Former Guerrero Gov. Ángel Aguirre Rivero was arrested Aug. 6 in Tepotzotlán, in the State of Mexico, Excélsior reported. In the early hours of Aug. 12, a federal judge at the Altiplano complex ordered him to stand trial for enforced disappearance; prosecutors allege he ordered security-camera footage from the Iguala courthouse hidden or destroyed. He remains in pretrial detention at Altiplano, and the supplementary investigation period ends Dec. 4, according to Expansión.
On the military side, loose ends remain. In early June, U.S. immigration agents detained Enrique Martínez Chávez, a former soldier of the 27th Infantry Battalion, in Hawthorne, California. Mexico's Attorney General's Office confirmed he faces an active arrest warrant for enforced disappearance and is among 16 soldiers whose warrants were canceled in 2022 and reinstated in 2023, Milenio reported. The latest public reports, from June, placed him in immigration custody awaiting deportation; his transfer to Mexico has not been confirmed since.
Families also point to two decisions they call setbacks: Recommendation 208VG/2026 from Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, which clears the soldiers under scrutiny, as Proceso reported, and the Supreme Court's July 7 decision to take up review of a key ruling in the case, which parents fear could revive the discredited "historical truth," according to Amexi. After their Aug. 27 meeting with Sheinbaum, parents told the same news agency there was nothing new on the files, no answer on the extraditions they seek, and no decision yet on the return of the GIEI panel of independent experts. Back in May, the government had told them that return was not feasible, Excélsior reported.
Eight families who will never get an answer
The toll is also measured in empty chairs. Francisco Rodríguez Morales, father of student Everardo Rodríguez Bello, died Aug. 21, 2026, bringing to six fathers and two mothers the number of parents who have died without learning their sons' fate, by the count of Proceso, which matches the lawyer Vicario Aguilar's tally.
In twelve years, the remains of only three students have been identified: Alexander Mora Venancio, Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz and Christian Alfonso Rodríguez Telumbre, as Milenio has documented.
What comes next: Mexico City on the 26th, Iguala on the 27th
Tuesday's march was not the week's first action. On Sept. 19, parents had already protested outside the 35th Military Zone in Chilpancingo, Quadratín reported. Demonstrations are planned in the capital from Sept. 24 to 26, with the national march leaving the Angel of Independence at 4 p.m. on Saturday, according to Expansión. The week will close Sunday, Sept. 27, with a statewide march in Iguala, Pulso Informativo Guerrero said.
The federal report will arrive first. Its contents will determine whether the families head to the capital with a fresh lead or with their suspicions confirmed.
