Students and the relatives of missing students block a main highway in Chilpancingo, Mexico, on Oct. 5, 2014. Protesters are demanding answers a day after security forces investigating the role of municipal police in clashes a week ago, found a mass grave, raising fears the pits might hold 43 students missing since the violence that also resulted in six shooting deaths.IGUALA, Mexico – Authorities examining a clandestine mass grave have found the bodies too badly burned to determine quickly whether they are among 43 students unaccounted for following a deadly clash between police and protesters a week ago, a lawyer for families of the missing said Sunday.
Attorney Vidulfo Rosales told The Associated Press that officials also had not determined how many bodies are in the six burial pits discovered on a hillside on the outskirts of Iguala, a city in southern Mexico where a series of violent incidents last weekend resulted in six shooting deaths and more than two dozen people injured.
Rosales said relatives of 37 of the missing young people already had provided DNA samples that will be used to determine if the recovered remains belong to any of the students.
As investigators worked at the grave site, up to 2,000 protesters blocked a main highway in the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo demanding justice.
“You took them alive, we want them returned alive,” read a huge banner hung across the road linking Mexico City and Acapulco.