Relatives of Mexico's missing students say they have confidence in investigations

MEXICO CITY: Relatives of 43 students who disappeared in Mexico in September 2014, said on Friday (July 10) they have renewed confidence in investigations led by the government of Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The comments come after a bone fragment belonging to one of the missing students was found this week. The bone fragment is only the second set of remains to be definitively identified in a case that roiled the country.

Parents of the missing students met privately with Lopez Obrador at the Presidential Palace, located in the heart of Mexico City, where they received first hand news of developments into the case.

READ: Mexican drug trafficker arrested over case of 43 missing students

The abduction and apparent massacre of 43 student teachers from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College became a symbol of Mexico's chronic failure to tackle gang violence and corruption.

When Lopez Obrador took office 19 months ago, he pledged to shed light on the crime after the last government's conclusions about the case were widely criticised.

Prosecutors announced the discovery of the bone remnant of Christian Alfonso Rodriguez Telumbre, who was 19 when he disappeared, as they again questioned central parts of the previous official story.

After their abduction by corrupt police in the city of Iguala, the students were killed and incinerated by gang members at a waste dump in Cocula, according to the original account.

But the fragment, whose identification was confirmed by an Argentine forensic team, was not found at the Cocula dump, prosecutors said. The search yielded over 100 bone pieces, but only a few were viable for DNA testing, the forensic team said.

In late 2014, Mexico announced it had identified the remains of one of the students, Alexander Mora. Subsequent evidence of a second student was never definitively confirmed.