Ayotzinapa: An interactive map of the tragedy

Mexico City (apro) – A new digital platform shows step by step the progression of the violence that broke out in the city of Iguala, Guerrero, on the night of September 26, 2014, culminating in the murder of three students and a policeman and the disappearance of 43 normal people in Ayotzinapa. It is an interactive map that reconstructs in overwhelming detail all the known events of that night in Iguala, including inconsistencies in the so-called “historical truth” and the destruction of evidence by the authorities. The map was developed by Forensic Architecture and in collaboration with I openIt also clearly shows how federal and municipal forces, the army and organized crime groups were active in Iguala during the night of September 26, about three years ago, sometimes in clear collusion. Once the system of filters, tags and timelines is loaded (an operation that takes some time), the platform allows you to visualize all the stages of the tragedy, from the departure of students from the Rural Normal School of Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa to their simultaneous attacks in different areas of the city, in which 43 of them were forced to disappear. By following the escalation of violence, the user can choose different perspectives: that of each actor, the actions taken (violent or coordinated acts, etc.) or the “objects” that played a relevant role during the night of Iguala, such as buses, taxis, ambulances or weapons. Each actor or vehicle is identified by a dot, which has a different color: shades from blue to green show agents of the different police forces – the Federal Police, the City of Iguala and the City of Vizuco -, red for the victims, green for the Army and purple for organized crime and ambulances in white. When selecting the military element, it is clear that all the areas of the attack had military personnel present, reporting information to the headquarters of the 27th Battalion, located in the center of Iguala. On the map, the testimonies and communications of the actors involved this evening reappear: the surviving students, but also the police, soldiers, anonymous witnesses and members of criminal groups. For example, starting at nine o’clock in the evening, you can see the communications of all the actors flowing to and from the scenes of the attack on the Normalist bus, which are represented by large red circles. In addition to the interactive map, the platform offers a detailed 3D reconstruction of three key locations in Iguala during the night: the corner of Juan Álvarez Street and Periférico Norte Street, the suburb of the Palace of Justice and Santa Teresa Crossing –a 20 km south of the city. In these three places, the police and criminal gangs attacked the bus – including the Normalists and the Hornets football team – as well as other civilians. The 3D scenes show the progress of the attack almost minute by minute, with testimonies from the surviving Normalists. And not only that: these 3D reconstructions show that at least two of the six surveillance cameras in the Palace of Justice captured the attack on the Estrella de Oro 1531 bus by municipal police, as well as the kidnapping of students in a patrol car of the Vizucco police. Other cameras in the same building recorded the journey of the Estrella Roja bus, whose existence was initially ignored by the official investigation. The Attorney General’s Office of Guerrero State deleted the videos from the surveillance cameras, citing technical problems, and claimed that in any case they did not contain relevant material. The Forensic Architecture team, composed of architects, journalists, software developers and filmmakers, was commissioned by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) and the Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (Centro ProDH) to develop the platform. The organization compiled nearly 5,000 records from two reports issued by the IACHR Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) during its mission in Mexico, while the testimonies of surviving normalists were taken from the book A History of Shame , written by journalist John Gibbler.