On October 30, members of the Selkirk College Faculty Association organized a noon-hour vigil at the Castlegar campus of Selkirk College to support the families and friends of 43 missing Mexican student teachers. About 40 faculty and students attended.
SCFA members Mary Ann Morris and Victor Villa recounted the harrowing story of the missing student teachers. They then read out the name of each as students and faculty attending the vigil attached the photos of the “disappeared” to a large wall of support. A candle was lit for each of the student teachers.
Morris noted that “the students were taken alive and they must be returned alive to their families.”
Dr. Villa has been in touch with supporters in Mexico of the family and friends of the missing student teachers. He added that “it is very important for family and friends of the ‘disappeared’ students to know that teachers and students all over the world are supporting them and applying pressure on the Mexican government to do something immediately to return their loved ones alive.”
A number of sources report that these young student teachers from the Ayotzinapa Normal School were travelling to Mexico City to participate in a demonstration. The students stopped in the town of Iguala where local officials ordered the municipal police to attack them (killing six) fearing that they might disrupt an evening event of the town’s mayor. The police then handed the survivors over to Guerrero Unidos, a drug cartel. The student teachers have now “disappeared.”