The annual march to commemorate the 1968 massacre of protesting students in Mexico’s capital was eclipsed Thursday by demands to end a humanitarian crisis halfway around the world in Gaza.
The Oct. 2 march that has regularly been used not only to remember that earlier massacre, but also Mexico’s tens of thousands of other missing and abuses of authority, was this year full of Palestinian flags and signs demanding an end to Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
“We feel empathy not only for ours, for those our grandparents died for, but for all men and women around the world who are suffering what at one time we suffered,” said Edgar López, a 23-year-old economics student, who marched with a Palestinian flag on his back.
Protesters marched from the Tlatelolco plaza where in 1968 Mexican troops attacked students demanding an end to Mexico’s militarization and greater freedoms, leaving a never established death toll believed to be in the hundreds, to the capital’s central plaza.
While much of the march was peaceful some groups vandalized storefronts and threw objects, including Molotov cocktails, at the hundreds of police guarding the National Palace.
Mexico City officials estimated the march drew 10,000 people and authorities said there were about 350 who were masked and acting aggressively.
AP journalists saw at least three other journalists attacked by police and protesters, and a police officer cornered and attacked by protesters.
Local press reported at least six injured police, but authorities did not immediately confirm that number.
A smaller spontaneous protest had broken out in the capital the previous night after Israel detained members of a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid. Among those detained were six Mexicans.
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said earlier Thursday that her administration had demanded their immediate repatriation.
