Families of 43 missing Mexican students march in downtown Los Angeles

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Relatives and friends of the 43 students who disappeared in Mexico last September packed the streets of downtown Los Angeles Sunday to bring attention to their cause.

About 200 people began marching at about 1 p.m. from the Olvera Street plaza to the Mexican consulate at 2401 West 6th Street.

The students vanished on Sept. 26 after being stopped by Iguala police in the southwestern state of Guerrero.

The students had gone from the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers' College of Ayotzinapa to Mexico City to protest government policies. Mexican authorities believe they were turned over to a drug gang and killed.

Family and friends of the students said they have not seen solid proof of their deaths and remain hopeful that the students are alive.

"It is clear that their investigation did not result any clear results. The parents are really outraged because the investigation did not point out to any of the remains of their kids," march organizer Gaspar Rivera said.

Mexico's attorney general says gang members confessed to killing the students, burning their bodies and tossing their remains in a river. Officials said it was too difficult for forensic experts to identify those remains.

The students and their families come mostly from the remote mountains of the southern state of Guerrero, where they live in poverty under the thumb of corrupt governments, drug traffickers or armed vigilante groups that have sprung up in reaction to the region's lawlessness. They were being trained as teachers who would hike deep into the remote hills to educate some of Mexico's poorest children in areas often controlled by drug gangs.

The families will visit more than a dozen U.S. cities over the next three weeks to press international bodies to help bring the students home, said Felipe de la Cruz, a professor at the rural teachers college the students attended.

On April 28, protesters plan to converge in New York, where they hope to speak at the United Nations.

A spokesman for the consulate said the Mexican government rejects and condemns the crime and is committed to resolving the case and bringing to justice the people responsible.

"The government of Mexico has undertaken an investigation without precedents because of its magnitude and transparency", the spokesman said in a statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.