Mexico City’s National Palace. Photo: Boris G / Flickr

By KELIN DILLON

On Monday, May 13, a group of protesting Ayotzinapa normalistas launched firecrackers at the National Palace in Mexico City, injuring dozens of police officers in the process. 

The detonations came following a normalista rally held in the capital’s Zócalo protesting against funding the student-teachers never received from the Mexican Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit, as well as requesting an audience with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).

Witnesses reported the detonation of at least six firecrackers during the incident, with those who threw the explosives reportedly donned hoods and immediately left the scene.

According to the Mexico City Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSC), 26 elements of the capital’s police force were injured as a result of the explosions.

“Paramedics from the Rescue and Medical Emergency Squadron (ERUM), in seven ambulances, treated 26 uniformed personnel who had wounds in different parts of the body; 25 of them required transfer to a hospital due to the severity of their injuries, including three commanders,” the SSC said in a statement.

“After making their public expression and throwing objects, fences, firecrackers, rockets and some pieces of furniture, the protesters left the place,” added the SSC.

Monday’s incident comes as Ayotzinapa normalistas have ramped up protests in Mexico City

after eight soldiers accused of involvement in the Ayotzinapa case – which will see its 10-year anniversary this September – were released from preventative detention in prison.