NEW HAVEN-- Relatives of some of the 43 students who disappeared last September in Mexico are visiting Connecticut this week, holding rallies to bring attention to their cause and what they describe as human rights abuses on both sides of the border.
Several of those students' parents and organizers have been going all throughout the world to plead for justice.
On Thursday, the group held a rally at Yale University in New Haven, and on Wednesday outside the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.
"They're going far and wide to demand the safe return of their children," said Joseph Foran with the Mexico Solidarity Committee of Connecticut, an organization advocating for fair U.S-Mexico relations.
In September 2014, 43 students attending a rural teachers college went missing while protesting local government officials in the city of Iguala.
Some believe the missing students, mostly 19 and 20 years olds, were detained by police and then handed over to a local drug cartel. "There's no doubt from beginning to the end the government was intimately involved in this attack," Foran said.
Mexican authorities told the world the cartel killed the students, but parents say forensic evidences shows they are still alive.
"The few had survived stated had the students the few had survived were taken by the police, the federal police and the military," said Clemente Rodriguez, whose 19-yea- old son is one of the missing students.
The group also came to Yale University to protest former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, who led the country from 1994-2000 and is now the director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Protesters claim the former president used U.S. aid to arm a paramilitary group linked to violence.
Zedillo said in an email that the "Mexican federal government under his tenure neither created nor tolerated paramilitary groups. "Additionally, Zedillo wrote that during his six years as president and in the time since he left office, there have not been any accusations of corruption brought against him or members of his cabinet.
Organizers of the rallies the parents have been attending have been pressing for more involvement by international organizations and for Americans to give more scrutiny to the security aid money that Washington sends to Mexico.
Felipe De La Cruz's son was one of the students protesters that survived the attack and is free, but says he's still angry.
"What is happening in Mexico will be happening here in the United States. We want people to be aware of that," said De La Cruz,
The group will rally at a community gathering in New Haven on Thursday night before going to New York City for more rallies.
