By Nancy Caouette

MEXICO CITY 

Parents and relatives of 43 students who disappeared in late September reaffirmed their right to protest and search for their loved ones during a Tuesday press conference here.

“It is our right to protest and we can’t accept the repression from the state,’’ said Felipe de la Cruz, a spokesman for the parents of the missing students.

Parents and students of the college of Ayotzinapa vowed to not give up even if the government acts as if the case has been solved. They promised to organize other protests, marches and benefit concerts.

‘’We have the profound conviction that our kids are alive. We don’t want the authorities to give us back the youth in ashes as they unfortunately did for Alexander Mora’’ said de la Cruz.

Mexico’s attorney general said last week that remains found in Cocula, a city about 10 miles from Iguala where the students were last seen, matched the DNA of 19-year-old Alexander Mora.

But despite the findings, parents and relatives continue to say that they don’t have any trust in the official investigation.

The "government wants to turn the page on this case. We might be really poor, but we are not dumb and we can make our voice heard,’’ said Mario Cesar Gonzalez, a father of one of the missing boys.

Earlier this week local media published a report that implicated federal police and the army in the Sept. 26 disappearance of the students.

Parents reacted by saying they would continue to exert pressure on government to find out the truth.

‘’The implication of the army and federal police in the abduction of the missing students is a new line of investigation that authorities must take into account,” said Vidulfo Rosales, a lawyer of the parents of the missing students.

 “We want them to find which soldiers were there that night in order to question them.’’ 

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