By Nancy Caouette

MEXICO CITY

Two months to the day after of 43 students disappeared in Iguala, another story of a mass student abduction surfaced Wednesday.

Thirty-one high school students were kidnapped July 17, in broad daylight, in the city of Cocula, in the state of Guerrero, about 37 miles southwest from Iguala, according to an investigation by France 24.

Masked men with guns, dressed in navy blue uniforms, forced the students to climb in police trucks, according to a witness to the abductions.

“I was in the center, in the market, when the criminals came and took the children away,” said a woman who identified herself as Rosa. “They took my daughter with the others,” she told France 24.

“They grabbed them, as they were coming out of school. We don’t know why they took them,” she said, adding that the students were snatched on the last day of school before the holidays.

Other witnesses, too afraid to speak on camera, confirmed to France 24, off the record, that 31 boys and girls disappeared that day.

“Everyone else there was terrified. They did not move. They were so afraid because the men with guns told them not to move, not to say anything, not to tell anyone. I was so scared and crying because they took my daughter,” Rosa said while in tears.

The mother said she has received death threats if she told anyone about her daughter’s disappearance. A few days ago, Rosa’s husband was kidnapped for a few hours.

“I don’t know why, but they let him go. They cut his finger off. We brought him to the clinic and that is why he is here now,” she said. Rosa has fled the city in fear of more reprisals.

A few weeks ago, Cocula made headlines when Mexico’s attorney general revealed that two suspects in the 43 missing students case confessed to killing and burning the students in a city garbage dump.

www.aa.com.tr/en