There is friction between the parents of the 43 students who disappeared in Guerrero in 2014 and President López Obrador over the former’s request for the army to be investigated in connection with the crime, according to a lawyer for the victims’ families.

The lawyer, Vidulfo Rosales Sierra, also said that the federal government has begun intimidating the Ayotzinapa students’ parents, explaining that buses in which they were traveling on a Guerrero highway were stopped by the National Guard Tuesday and subsequently followed as they made their way to Acapulco.

He said that every time the parents advocate a thorough investigation into the army in connection with the events of September 26 and 27 of 2014, the government is annoyed at the prospect.

The army has long been accused of involvement in the case, in which the students were allegedly handed over to a crime gang by corrupt municipal police in Iguala before being killed.

Leaked testimony from a protected witness that was obtained by the newspaper Reforma last year supported the belief that the army played a part in the crime that triggered mass protests and rattled the government led by former president Enrique Peña Nieto.

One theory is that the students’ bodies were burned in army incinerators after they were killed.

A document released in late 2021 by the federal Attorney General’s Office containing testimony from soldiers was so heavily redacted that it was illegible.

Rosales said that friction has been evident at meetings between the parents and López Obrador and other government officials over “the Mexican army issue.”

“When it’s placed on the table, they don’t like it, it causes disagreement so that’s caused friction,” he said.

The lawyer said the animosity between the two parties was regrettable and that no progress has been made on the case in recent months.

Upon taking office in late 2018, López Obrador vowed to establish the truth about what happened to the 43 students, but the remains of just three of the young men have been found and identified, and the current government, while disavowing its predecessor’s so-called “historical truth,” hasn’t provided its own definitive version of events.

With reports from El Universal