43 students vanished in Mexico in 2014, according to new claims.

According to the Mexican government official overseeing a Truth Commission, six of the 43 college students who vanished in 2014 were reportedly held alive in a warehouse for days before being handed over to the local army commander, who gave the order to murder them.

Alejandro Encinas, interior undersecretary, made the unexpected remark while defending the commission’s findings that had been made public a week earlier. It was the first time an official has openly linked the military to one of Mexico’s biggest human rights catastrophes.

Encinas made no mention of the six students being handed over to Col. José Rodrguez Pérez last Friday, while calling the kidnappings and disappearances a “state crime” and asserting that the army stood by and did nothing.

Encinas said on Friday that from the moment the students from the radical teachers’ college in Ayotzinapa left school until they were taken hostage by local police in the town of Iguala that evening, officials had been keeping a careful eye on them. One of the kidnapped pupils was a soldier who had infiltrated the school, and Encinas said the army did not follow its own procedures and attempt to save him.

There is further evidence, which is supported by emergency 089 calls, that six of the 43 students who vanished were supposedly detained for many days alive in what is known as the “old warehouse” before being handed over to the colonel, according to Encinas. The six students were purportedly alive for up to four days after the events until they were slain and vanished on instructions from the colonel, who was allegedly Col. José Rodrguez Pérez at the time.

When contacted for comment about the claims on Friday, the defense department did not answer right away.

Tension between the families and the government has long been a result of the army’s involvement in the students’ abduction. There have always been concerns regarding the military’s role and knowledge of what transpired. The parents of the kids had been requesting access to the Iguala army base for years. They weren’t granted entry until 2019, along with Encinas and the Truth Commission.