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Pena Nieto caves to demands on missing students

Mexican president agrees to commission to monitor investigation

President Enrique Pena Nieto agreed on Wednesday to set up a commission to monitor the official investigation into the case of 43 missing students in Guerrero province.

He conceded the request, following a six-hour meeting with the students' parents, in response to their declaration of no confidence in the investigation.

The 43 teaching college students disappeared on September 26, when investigators accuse police of having detained them and handed them over to a drug gang.

The parents of the missing have grown increasingly frustrated at the pace of the investigation into the police attack in the city of Iguala, which also left six dead.

The case has shaken the image of improving security that the government has sought to project since Mr Pena Nieto took office in 2012.

"We are not going to trust the words of the president nor the commitments that were made public ... until they present the 43 students to us alive," parent Felipe de la Cruz told a news conference late on Wednesday.

Human rights officials said earlier in the day that the meeting was over but that family members were refusing to leave until the president signed a document to the satisfaction of everyone.

Mr Pena Nieto said that the commission would be made up of government officials and parents to provide daily updates on the investigation.

The government also agreed to provide greater protection for rural teaching colleges and the families of those killed or wounded in the attack and to redouble efforts to determine the students' whereabouts.

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