POLICE searching for 43 missing college students have found human remains in Guerrero state and are testing to see if they belong to the young men last seen in police custody a month ago.

The new search area in Cocula, a town about 10 miles from where the students last were seen, was identified by four people arrested early on Monday.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam confirmed the four arrests in a press conference but made no mention of more remains or mass graves.

He said that some of those arrested could be members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel responsible for the abduction of the students after an attack by local police.

A total of 56 suspects are currently held in custody over the case.

The students from a rural teachers college disappeared after a confrontation with police in Iguala, 80 miles south-west of Mexico City.

Officials say that the attack was ordered by Iguala mayor Jose Luis Abarca, who is sought, along with his wife and the city police chief.

Mr Murrillo said that local officers had taken the students to a police station and then to Cocula, where they were loaded aboard a dump truck and then taken, apparently still alive, to the outskirts of Iguala.

Official searches for the students have been spurred by increasingly violent demonstrations, including the burning of Iguala’s city hall last week.

Before this latest discovery, investigators had found 11 clandestine graves containing 38 sets of human remains in hills near Iguala, none of which matched the students’ DNA.

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