A Mother's Love Insists on Answers to Mexico's Missing Ayotzinapa Students Arturo Conde - NBC Latino
go to original May 8, 2016

Cristina Bautista, mother of Benjamin Ascencio, one of 43 missing students, walks inside the Raul Isidro Burgos de Ayotzinapa school. (AFP/Getty Images)

One Mexican woman says that justice for some human rights issues can best be pushed through the conviction, determination and love of a mother.

"Even though we are farmers and we come from indigenous villages, we have to demand that the government return our children alive," said Cristina Bautista Salvador, the mother of Benjamín Ascencio Bautista, one of the 43 teacher's college students who disappeared in Mexico over 19 months ago. She is still holding out hope her son is alive and she will be able to see him again.

The Ayotzinapa families maintain that their sons are still being held captive by Mexican police and military. A recent report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights challenges the Mexican government's investigation—which concluded that the students were murdered by a drug gang and later incinerated in a garbage dump—pointing to evidence that key suspects in the case had been tortured for testimonies.

"With the report from the forensic experts the government can no longer say that it knows nothing," said Bautista. "We have scientific evidence that proves that police forces were involved. And we need to keep fighting for our sons."

Speaking by phone to NBC Latino, Bautista said that her son Benjamín—who turned 21 years old on April 9—wanted to become a teacher so that he could take care of his family. He aspired for a fulfilling life where neither he nor his mom had to do more backbreaking labor.

"He told me that he did not want to work like a donkey," she remembered. "He wanted to work like an ox. An ox works with his horns. And a donkey works with his back. My son wanted to work with his head."

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