Remains found in hunt for 
students

The authorities came upon the new location in southern Guerrero state based on statements from four people arrested early yesterday, said a government official.

The new remains were found in Cocula, a town about 10 miles from where the students were last seen.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam confirmed the four arrests, and said some of those detained could be members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel responsible for the actual disappearance of the students after an attack by local police.

Two of the detainees said they received a large group of people around September 26, the date the students went missing, he added.

Investigators were trying to confirm their statements. Mexico now has a total of 56 people in custody over the case.

The students from a rural teachers college disappeared after a confrontation with police in Iguala, a city about 80 miles from Mexico City.

The authorities say the attack was ordered by Jose Luis Abarca, the mayor of Iguala who is being sought by officials, along with his wife and the city’s police chief.

Mr Murrillo Karam has said the local officers took the students to a police station and then to Cocula. At some point, they were loaded aboard a dump truck and taken, apparently still alive, to an area on the outskirts of Iguala, he said.

Mexican authorities have mounted searches for the students, spurred by increasingly violent demonstrations that included the burning of Iguala’s city hall by protesters last week.