2 students from school of missing 43 killed in Guerrero

Gunmen attacked a public transport van in southern Mexico and killed three people, including two students from the teachers college that had 43 students disappear in the hands of police two years ago, authorities said Wednesday.

Roberto Álvarez Heredia, spokesman of the Guerrero Coordination Group, said that the attack occurred Tuesday evening outside the state capital Chilpancingo on a van headed to Tixtla where the Rural Normal School at Ayotzinapa is located.

Álvarez said the motive was theft, but said they were shot while handing over their wallets. Guerrero Gov. Héctor Astudillo condemned the killings Wednesday.

There was no apparent connection to the disappearance of the 43 classmates, who prosecutors say were intercepted by local police in Iguala on Sept. 26, 2014, and turned over to members of a drug cartel. They have not been heard from since, and failure to solve the case has become a continuing major scandal for Mexico's government.

Less than an hour after the students were shot, gunmen in Chilpancingo killed another minibus driver who refused to stop for them.