Chilling moment protestors knock down door of Mexico’s presidential palace with pickup truck as rioters want answers about missing students who vanished in 2014

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By Maya Cantina

This is the shocking moment angry protestors used a pickup truck to break down the wooden doors of presidential palace in Mexico.

The demonstrators were protesting the 2014 kidnapping and murder of 43 missing students on Wednesday when they pushed the vehicle to break through the doors and rushed the colonial-era National Palace in Mexico City, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador lives and holds his daily press briefings.

The group broke several windows before security agents forced them to retreat from the palace, a historic structure dating back to the 1700s that was built on the site of the Aztec emperor’s palace.

The demonstration, like others in the past, was held to protest the mass disappearance of students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College that took place on September 26, 2014, in Iguala, a city in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero.

Demonstrators were capture on video pushing a pickup truck before they broke through the door of the National Palace in Mexico City on Wednesday

Students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teacher Training College took part in the demonstration to demand justice for 43 missing students at the presidential palace in Mexico City on Wednesday

Students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teacher Training College took part in the demonstration to demand justice for 43 missing students at the presidential palace in Mexico City on Wednesday

The structure of the National Palace palace dates back to the 1700s and was built on the site of the Aztec emperor's palace

The structure of the National Palace palace dates back to the 1700s and was built on the site of the Aztec emperor’s palace

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that the demonstrators who protested outside the National Palace on Wednesday were carrying sledgehammers and blowtorches

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that the demonstrators who protested outside the National Palace on Wednesday were carrying sledgehammers and blowtorches

President López Obrador called the protest a provocation, and claimed the demonstrators had sledgehammers and blowtorches.

‘This is a movement against us,’ López Obrador said. ‘The plan is to create a provocation.’

But the president also attempted to downplay the seriousness of the protest, saying ‘The door will be fixed, it’s nothing.’

For years, the victims’ families and students at government rural teachers’ colleges have protested the disappearances. It remains one of Mexico’s most infamous human rights cases.

With López Obrador’s term ending next year, family members face the prospect of a tenth year of not knowing what happened to their sons but fears that the next administration will start the error-plagued investigation over from scratch yet again.

The group of students was attacked by municipal police in Iguala and handed them over to a local drug gang that apparently killed them and set their bodies on fire. Since then, only three of their remains have been identified.

After an initial coverup, last year, a government truth commission concluded that local, state and federal authorities colluded with the gang to murder the students in what it called a ‘state crime.’ 

Demonstrators push a pickup truck to break down a door at the National Palce - the home of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador - in Mexico City on Wednesday

Demonstrators push a pickup truck to break down a door at the National Palce – the home of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – in Mexico City on Wednesday

A banner reading 'We Demand a Dialogue with the President' is on display on the facade of the Nacional Palace on Wednesday during a protest over the kidnapping and murder of 43 student teachers in September 2014

 A banner reading ‘We Demand a Dialogue with the President’ is on display on the facade of the Nacional Palace on Wednesday during a protest over the kidnapping and murder of 43 student teachers in September 2014

A group protesting over the disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College in 2014 forced their way into the National Palace on Wednesday to protest against the administration of President Manuel Andrés López Obrador over the lack of results in investigating the case

A group protesting over the disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in 2014 forced their way into the National Palace on Wednesday to protest against the administration of President Manuel Andrés López Obrador over the lack of results in investigating the case

López Obrador has complained about the involvement of human rights groups, who he claimed have prevented him from speaking directly to the parents of the missing students.

Xóchitl Gálvez, who is running against ruling-party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum to become the country’s first woman president, slammed the López Obrador on Wednesday for failing to meet with the grieving families.

‘The President needs to stop looking for blame,’ Gálvez wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. ‘The only one responsible for what happened at the National Palace is him with his arrogance for not receiving the parents and lawyers of the Ayotzinapa student teachers.’

Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, addressed protest Thursday while campaigning and said that López Obrador has scheduled a meeting with the parents. 

The under-funded radical rural teachers’ colleges in Mexico have a decades-long tradition of violent protests. 

In fact, when they were abducted, the students themselves had been hijacking passenger buses, which they were going to use to travel to another protest.

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