Organizers hang a banner with photos of missing students as they prepare for a “Caravana 43” event Wednesday, April 22, 2015, at UNLV. Caravana 43 is a project developed with the purpose of bringing to the U.S. parents and classmates of the 43 Mexican students who disappeared on September 26, 2014.
Published Wednesday, April 22, 2015 | 4:08 p.m.
Updated Wednesday, April 22, 2015 | 11 p.m.
Las Vegas was the latest stop for a pair of Mexican parents touring across dozens of cities in the Western U.S. to bring attention to the disappearance of 43 college students who went missing six months ago in the Mexican state of Guerrero.
"We're asking for your support," Blanca Luz Nava Velez told a group of about 150 who gathered outside the UNLV Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at UNLV Wednesday night. Her son, Jorge Alvarez Nava, is among the 43 young men who were apparently kidnapped Sept. 26 while riding a bus to participate in a protest in Iguala. Relatives have blamed state officials for the ambush. "You can do so much from here by supporting us and denouncing the Mexican government."
The parents, part of a grassroots protest group that calls itself “Caravana 43,” hail from the Ayotzinapa region in Guerrero, about 150 miles from where students went missing.
“These students had dreams,” said rally attendee Xuan Carlos Espinoza-Cuellar, who teaches classes on race and gender equality at UNLV. “Mexico is my land and my parents’ land, and I want peace there.”
For months, members of Caravana 43 have held demonstrations throughout Mexico and the U.S. to raise awareness about the disappearance. Nava Velez and neighbor Estanislao Mendoza Chocolate have been visiting dozens of states in the West — other cities they’ve visited include Los Angeles, Phoenix and Salt Lake City. Their next stop is New York City.
Wednesday’s event was organized by a group of local Latino activists who have been raising money to help the relatives travel and to benefit orphaned children and relatives of the abducted. Earlier that morning, they met with the group Hispanics in Politics to share their message with local leaders.
“This was a crime against humanity,” said Las Vegan Cuauhtemoc Sanchez, who led efforts to organize Wednesday’s event. “The pain of losing a relative feels the same to an American as it does to a Mexican.”
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