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FURIOUS protesters clashed with police outside Mexico’s National Palace on Thursday night over the disappearance of 43 students.
After a massive march demanding President Enrique Pena Nieto’s resignation, tens of thousands of black-clad protesters rallied in Mexico City.
They waved blackened Mexican flags and chanted: “Urgent for the president to resign.”
Parents of the 43 missing students, who reject government claims that their sons are dead, led the nationwide demonstration to the palace.
“We won’t rest until we find the boys,” Felipe de la Cruz, father of one of the missing students, told the crowd after the parents arrived in the capital following a week-long protest bus tour of Mexico.
The protesters burned an effigy of the president and threw fireworks at the fenced-off palace.
Hundreds of riot police sprayed water and fired tear gas at groups of young protesters who confronted them as the rally ended.
But other protesters tried to calm the situation, warning the youths: “No violence,” before the police swarmed and cleared Zocalo Square.
Before the march, masked protesters had challenged riot police squads, hurling fire bombs and using tubes to launch rockets at police, who hit back with tear gas.
Mexicans are fed up with corruption and impunity in the country and a drug war that has left more than 100,000 people dead or missing since 2006.
The 43 students, who attended radical rural teachers’ college Ayotzinapa, disappeared after they went to demonstrate in the city of Iguala.
Police intercepted them on the mayor’s orders and turned them over to the criminal group Guerreros Unidos, a gang with ties to the mayor, prosecutors have alleged.
They say there is evidence that the gang members killed the students and incinerated their remains, but parents reject the evidence.
Thousands of supporters protested in several other cities, including Guerrero state capital Chilpancingo.
Support has also been shown in other countries, with thousands marching in Bolivia and El Salvador.
Thursday’s demonstration coincided with the anniversary of the 1910 Mexican revolution, prompting the government to cancel the annual parade.
