Mexico missing students: Breakthrough as experts 'identify' remains of at least one of the 43

DNA tests have reportedly shown some of the remains belonged to Alexander Mora, a 19-year-old who longed to be a teacher

At least one of more than 40 missing Mexican students has been identified from a jumble of charred remains found on a rubbish dump.

The parents of 43 students, widely assumed to have been murdered by either police or criminal gangs, were told by forensic experts brought in from Argentina that the DNA tests had shown some of the remains belonged to Alexander Mora, a 19-year-old who longed to be a teacher.

“If the government thinks that, because one of our boys’ DNA was identified, we will sit and cry, we want to tell them that they're wrong,” Felipe de la Cruz, the father of a missing student, said at a rally of parents on Saturday. According to CNN, he added: “We will keep fighting until we find the other 42.”

The students disappeared on September 26 following clashes with police in the city of Iguala in Guerrero state, south of Mexico City. It has been claimed the students were seized by police and then handed over to a criminal gang on the orders of Iguala’s then mayor, Jose Luis Abarca.

Prosecutors have said the students were killed by the drug gang and their bodies were burned and the remains placed in bags and thrown into a river. The authorities have so far detained more than 70 people in connection with the alleged murders, including the former mayor.

The case of the missing students, who were attending a teaching college, has sent reverberations across Mexico and exposed what many analysts say are deep and persistent links between local officials and organised criminals.

Reports say the case has pushed the approval ratings of the country’s president, Enrique Pena Nieto, to the lowest he has experienced in his two in office. There have been calls for him to resign over the issue.

Officials have said the students were rounded up on the orders of the mayor to prevent them from disrupting a speech that his wife, who has political ambitions, was due to deliver. The students had been protesting about what they said were discriminatory education employment habits which favoured urban students over those from rural areas.

While many believe all 43 students are dead, the parents have insisted the authorities treat the case as a missing persons investigation and continue to search for them.

Omar Garcia, a student who attended the same teachers college in the town of Ayotzinapa as the missing young men, spoke with the father of Mr Mora, the student whose remains were identified. He told the Associated Press: “He will never give up. He will never get over his pain, but what he wants to tell all of you, and what we all want to say is this - we want justice.”