in september 2014, 43 students disappeared from passenger buses in the mexican town of iguala, guerrero. translation from spanish: they were in police custody and then they're just gone. the federal government took charge of the case. police started finding many places with clandestine graves. it was just horrifying. just three months after the disappearance, the government announced they had solved the case.

we were analysing the evidence. it wasjust not matching the official story. shouting protests erupted across mexico. a team of independent experts began their own investigation and the government case starts to unravel. these are people who are in guerrero and they're - on the phone in guerrero,

in iguala, in most cases. i he reads in english: "if i don't answer, "it is because i'll be - lunching with the military." i mean, these are evidence that there's direct communications l and direct levels of- contact between leaders of the guerreros unidos carteland members ofl the mexican military. from the very beginning, like the morning after the attacks against the students, the big question was, what did the army do? there's two army bases in iguala, a kilometre to two kilometres away from the various scenes of attack.

they were out in the streets that night, at least by one in the morning. and at one in the morning, the attacks were still taking place. people were still being disappeared. the military was operating the camera surveillance system in iguala that night. shouting. they were seeing in real time everything that was taking place.

applause. the president of mexico told the mexican army, talk to the investigators and give them everything they ask for.

i think it's incredibly important to remember mexican military hates ayotzina pa.

for years, they'd been slandered as violent, as hoodlums, as criminals. from the very beginning, these schools, the rural teachers' colleges, have become an emblem of a part of mexico that the political and economic elite want to get rid of. the explanation of the brutality against them that night was, in part, a message to the school and to the world of leftist, rural, grassroots struggle that this is what awaits them if they continue to organise. in 2022, omar, from the mexican prosecutor's office, _ came to chicago and he was given legal accessl

to the intercepts and i investigative materials from dea. he finally received - what had been missing, which was the ability to sit i down and look at everything in the investigative case file i and look at all the intercepts.

in august 2022, the former attorney general, murillo karam, is arrested. a further 83 arrest warrants are requested by omar's office. 20 are for soldiers on duty in iguala on the night of the attacks. horn beeps. siren wails.

at this point, we know that the army participated in the attacks against the students, and we know that the army participated in the cover—up. but at the same time, you have the president giving the military more power than they've ever had. in a series of moves over a period of months, he has militarised the federal police. at the same time, major infrastructure projects — a bullet train in the yucatan peninsula, a major new mexico city airport... ..he gave them to the army. and so you have this schizophrenic situation of a president who has got this special prosecutor working on a case where the army was involved in mass forced disappearance and then cover—up. but he's anchoring his presidency on his relationship with the mexican army.

in 2018, this administration made explicit commitments to investigate and to bring the perpetrators to justice. not only have they not done that, when the special prosecutor's unit was getting really close to full documentation of the events that night, which included military participation, they dynamited the case. i think they blew it up from the inside because they didn't want to touch the army.

chanting.

injune 2023, the mexican government reissues 16 of the arrest warrants for soldiers. but omar is also now under investigation for his handling of the case.

injuly 2023, the group of independent experts left mexico. in their final report, they accused the army of obstruction by failing to provide all documents and evidence relating to the case. insects buzz.

what ayotzinapa shows you is this absolute fusion between transnational drug trafficking and the entire apparatus of state security. municipal police. state police. federal police. army. military intelligence. and not only that — after that night, the entire structure of the state, the highest levels of the administrative branch of the mexican state, collaborating together... ..creating this culture of impunity and making it impossible to find the students.

when the ayotzinapa case happened, it made much more apparent the human rights crisis that was going on in mexico, due to the high level of violence, you know, of organised crime. in mexico right now, the number of people missing are above 110,000. and it keeps on rising all the time. and the majority of the disappearances occurred after 2006, which is when the government declared a waron drugs... ..and a number of policies were implemented against drug trafficking and organised crime. and that produced, unfortunately, an enormous increase in disappearances and homicides that haven't stopped up until now.

families of missing people are actually searching themselves for their loved ones with shovels and picks... ..looking for them based on tips that they received from different people. it's extremely hard psychologically and physically, and it's dangerous, too.

faint echoing. shouts

hello there. there's still plenty of standing water from the heavy rain on thursday coupled with a snow melt, of course. here's a flooded park in warwickshire as captured by one of our weather watchers. bright skies, but lots of water on the ground, and there are still a number of flood warnings in place across england and wales. the good news is it should be a much drier weekend of weather, but with low pressure still close by, we're still likely to see some showers and indeed some longer spells of rain here and there at times. now, you can see on the pressure chart here that warm front just pushing northwards across the north of scotland. this is where the colder air is being displaced to, but still some snow falling on the tops of the hills towards the far north of scotland as we head through the rest of the night. we'll still see temperatures here dip below freezing. but this is generally how we're starting off on saturday morning. it's a colder, drier start to the day across the south of england and wales. some patches of mist and fog here, some hill fog further north where we'll keep all of that low cloud in that

now milder—feeling air. so still some strong, gusty winds across the far north of scotland. elsewhere, the winds are lighter, still some wintriness for caithness and sutherland. but further south, there'll be lots of cloud for northern ireland, though, northern england, much of england and wales. in fact, there will be some sunshine developing — watch out for some showers towards the west, maybe. and these will be the temperatures to end the afternoon. it's turned a lot milder now across scotland, 12 celsius in the south of england. low pressure approaches the far southwest, the winds will pick up here, some showers and some longer spells of rain just creeping into the south—east of england and east anglia as we head towards the end of the day on saturday. that area of low pressure is set to spin its way further northwards towards parts of eastern scotland as we head through the day on sunday. so it's always going to be cloudier towards eastern coastal areas with, again, some outbreaks of rain at times, a good scattering of showers further west, but also some brighter skies. the winds picking up and temperatures a little lower for many towards the south, but, of course, higherfurther north. now, as we head into monday,

we're back to more northwesterly winds. the air is going to feel colder, and some of these showers could turn out to be a little wintry, particularly over the higher ground towards the north and the west, feeling a little chillier for most with a bit of added wind chill to factor in as well. but by the time we get to tuesday and wednesday, those temperatures will be picking up again with some milder air, an atlantic influence, and there will be some more showers in the forecast at times.

live from washington, this is bbc news. coming up: our special report on the ongoing crisis in sudan as the civil war

there rages on, displacing millions and leaving the country on the brink of humanitarian disaster. sudan's warring factions have agreed to talks on allowing aid into the country, but a political solution seems a distant reality. plus, we'll hear from humanitarian workers, diplomats, and experts, to help explain the conflict and prospects for a resolution to the crisis. hello, i'm carl nasman. welcome to this bbc news special report on the war in sudan. the united nations recently urged the international community not to forget the civilians caught in the middle of sudan's civil war. millions of people in africa's third largest country are in desperate need of humanitarian aid, after 10 months of fighting. first, here's more on the roots of the conflict. sudan is engulfed in a vicious power struggle between

the sudanese army's de facto leader abdel fattah al—burhan,