Abel García-Hernández

*This article includes content which may be disturbing to some readers, such as excessive violence or sexual assault/abuse. Discretion is advised.*

## Abel García-Hernández

### Classification

Suspected homicide

**Abel García-Hernández** was a young man who was among forty-three Mexican students kidnapped on September 26, 2014, in Iguala, Mexico by local police and cartel members.

## Early Life

Abel García-Hernández was born to María Micaela Hernández and Celso García Aristeo on June 15, 1995 as their sixth of seven children. The family lived in Tecuantepec, Mexico and are of Mixtec descent and speak Tu'un savi. His father was a masonic worker and farmer who grew corn, beans, pumpkin seeds, and Jamaica. The family eats what they harvest, and his mother sells the extra at the market in town.

Growing up, García-Hernández enjoyed marbles, running down the river, chasing donkeys, playing tricks on his brother Oscar, singing, playing the guitar, and basketball. He was described as a "loving and caring son and brother" who looked forward to play with his nephews. His nephews often called him "Nito," an affectionate name for "little brother." García-Hernández kept notebooks and diaries, often writing his thoughts and dreams and drawing. He notably wrote, "The impossible will take me a long time, but I will succeed."

García-Hernández enrolled in tuition-free Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa. He enrolled to help his father with family expenses and to become a teacher. He hoped to be a bilingual teacher and to teach Mixtec children to feel pride in their heritage.

## Kidnapping

García-Hernández was among a hundred students who commandeered several buses at 6:00 PM in order to travel to Mexico City to commemorate the 1968 Tlateleco massacre. They were stopped by Iguala municipal police force at around 9:30 PM reportedly on the orders of the mayor José Luis Abarca-Velázquez by using gunfire and roadblocks. A chase between the buses and police ensued in which six people were killed, three of which were civilians in unrelated buses or taxis. After the shootings, García-Hernández and forty-two students, were arrested by the police and turned in to the police in Cocula. It is then believed the students were killed by Guerreros Unidos, a criminal gang that splintered from the now-defunct Beltrán-Leyva Cartel, either due to mistaken identity of being a rival gang or Abarca-Velázquez, who has ties to the gang, being mad that they were going to disrupt a speech he was to present.

## Investigation

In January 2015, former Attorney General Jesus Murrillo-Karam said it was the "historic truth" that the bodies of the students, had been incinerated in a huge fire at a garbage dump in Cocula and their ashes were tossed into the San Juan River. However, this version of events has not been accepted by experts and the families of the students.

Since the mass kidnapping, dozens of gang members and police officers, as well as Abarca-Velázquez and his wife and José Ángel Casarrubias-Salgadoalias who is the leader of Guerreros Unidos. No convictions have been made in the case, however. It has been speculated that the members of the Mexican Federal Police and 27th Infantry Battalion of the Mexican Army were involved, but this has not been proven. Additionally, others believe the students are still alive, forced to work as laborers.

The mass kidnapping and the lack of answers to what happened drew international condemnation and protests. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights assembled a panel of experts who conducted a six-month investigation who concluded in 2015 that the government's claims on the matter were "scientifically impossible."

The remains of three students have been identified. However, García-Hernández and thirty-nine other students remain missing.

## Gallery

Abel García-Hernández's parents next to a poster of their missing son.
## Sources

* Amnesty International
* *Running for Ayotzinapa 43*
* 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping on Wikipedia