Protesters set fire to two patrol cars in southern Mexico

An AFP correspondent witnessed the automobiles being torched on a roadway in the town of Tixtla, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Chilpancingo, the state capital.

According to local media, the cars belonged to the National Guard, and demonstrators temporarily held the passengers.

On Thursday, one student from the Ayotzinapa teacher training institution was killed and another injured in a clash with police in Guerrero, sparking demonstrations.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador previously said the pair were traveling in a stolen car when police ordered them to stop, and that the men in the car had opened fire first.

According to the Guerrero public security secretariat, a firearm was found in the vehicle.

Some, however, have rejected the official version of events, and students from Ayotzinapa went to demonstrate in Chilpancingo after the incident, allegedly setting fire to at least one vehicle.

The shooting is under investigation by the attorney general and state prosecutor’s offices.

It took place against a backdrop of flaring tensions over the case of 43 students from the same college who went missing nearly a decade ago.

The day before the shooting, protesters smashed open a door to Mexico’s presidential palace demanding to meet Lopez Obrador to discuss the case.

The 43 students had been traveling to a demonstration in Mexico City when investigators believe they were kidnapped by a drug cartel in collusion with corrupt police.

The exact circumstances of their disappearance are still unknown, but a truth commission set up by the government has branded the case a “state crime”, saying the military shared responsibility, either directly or through negligence.