The night 43 students disappeared in Mexico: A chronology of the most important events

IGUALA, Mexico (AP) — Ulises Martínez still feels uncomfortable in this town, even though it has been 10 years since 43 of his fellow students were kidnapped here from a rural teachers' school.

Martínez was in his third year at the Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, an institution known for its radical commitment to social justice about 120 kilometers south of Iguala in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero.

The students who disappeared on September 26, 2014 had requisitioned five buses in Iguala and wanted to travel to Mexico City to take part in a commemoration ceremony for the massacre in which government troops killed almost 300 people during a student demonstration in 1968.

The Mexican government has determined that the students at the Rural Normal School were attacked by security forces linked to a local drug cartel, but what happened to them remains unclear.

As part of his personal commitment to justice, Martínez has reconstructed a chronology of his events. Here is what he remembers:

21:30, 26 September 2014

In Ayotzinapa, the students learn that their classmates in Iguala are having problems and set off for the city in two vans.

10pm

The highway is empty, but at an intersection about 16 kilometers from Iguala, armed men in a pickup truck are blocking the road. “When we saw that, we knew it wasn't going to be easy,” said Martínez.

The student behind the wheel accelerates and drives around the roadblock. No shots are fired.

10:20 p.m.

On the road to Iguala, they see one of the five buses their classmates took. It is torn to pieces. The tires are slashed, the windows are smashed and the luggage compartments are open. They also see a handful of freshmen running away. When they turn around to pick them up, they are gone. At the same time, they receive desperate calls from other attacked students who try to describe where they are so that Martínez and his companions can pick them up.

10:30 p.m.

Martínez and the others arrive at the last stop where the students first boarded the buses. They ask the taxi drivers there to take them to a place that matches the students' descriptions, but the drivers refuse, saying that they are forbidden to go there.

11pm

As the students drive through downtown Iguala, they find three buses, all shot to pieces. Some students stand there and cry. “They couldn't understand what had happened,” says Martínez.

Martínez gets on one of the buses, where he finds pools of blood and seats riddled with bullet holes.

“It looked really bad,” he said. “We waited for the authorities, but no one came.”

There is confusion. Students guard the area, afraid that someone might try to remove the buses or pick up the bullet casings. They call a local news agency.

27 September 2014, 00:30

During an impromptu press conference, Martínez walks over to take a photo of a pool of blood left where witnesses say a student was shot in the head. A red vehicle slowly rolls up and several men dressed in black get out.

“One of them knelt down,” said Martínez. “First he fired into the air and then he started shooting at close range.”

Martínez freezes in shock. A news reporter trips over him and they both fall to the ground.

Martínez then hides behind a bus wheel. Someone screams for him to run away. One student runs off on his own and another is shot in the jaw and begins to bleed profusely.

When the shooting stops, a woman tells them to take him to a nearby hospital. “They're going to kill you,” she says.

Martínez and his companions later learn that two students were killed at the crime scene.

1 o'clock

The students enter a small clinic where nurses allow an injured student to sit down but do not treat him.

Martínez and a classmate from Iguala climb to the roof of the clinic to see if they were being followed. Martínez calls his father to say goodbye in case he doesn't survive.

Two army trucks arrive. Martínez's classmate wants to jump from the roof. Martínez says no, it would be safer at a nearby army base. But his classmate says that's not true.

Soldiers, drug dealers, police officers. “They are all the same,” warns the other student.

The soldiers gather everyone downstairs. They tell the students to identify themselves in a notebook and warn them not to give false names. Then the soldiers get a call and leave, but say the police are on their way to pick up the students.

1:15 am

The students flee before the police arrive, convincing a taxi driver to take their injured classmate to the hospital while the rest run down the street and eventually find a house where 30 students who survived the attack in Iguala have found refuge.

“I hid between a water tank and a washing machine,” said Martínez. “I found a wooden rosary and put it on.”

A girl takes Martínez and five others to another house to hide. No one is sleeping.

5 o'clock

Students give statements to state investigators. One sets out to search for classmates who are still missing.

A gruesome photo of Julio Cesár Mondragón, the student who ran away alone when gunfire broke out, begins to circulate: his face has been ripped out.

9 o'clock

Martínez is sent to the hospital to check on injured classmates. He stays for four days, sleeping on a piece of cardboard on the floor.

The night of terror is over, but a new nightmare begins: Martínez and others will soon learn the full, terrifying extent of the attack. And they will spend the next ten years searching for answers.

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