STUDENTS marched through downtown Mexico City on Monday evening, marking 55 years since the military massacred hundreds of students in Tlatelolco Plaza.

Enrique Trevino Taudres survived the massacre and now marches every year with the Pro Democratic Freedoms 68 Committee. 

Mr Taudres said: “People know a lot and forget easily,” saying that the memory of Tlatelolco holds important lessons for modern Mexico.

As many as 300 people were massacred at a student protest in Tlatelolco plaza on October 2 1968, in what the Mexican government initially reported as the lawful suppression of a violent riot just 10 days before the Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Mexico City.

Since then, military reports have revealed that at least 360 government snipers opened fire and the military members posted at the square began shooting peaceful protesters and students.

Mr Taudres said: “It’s a commemoration of that day, but it is also a call to the current students, the current young people, to be aware of the reality.”

Adolfo Cruz, a tourism student in the city, marching for the first time, said: “Part of this is remembering all our deceased companions because it’s thanks to them we have the right to march today.

“We also want to change things.”

Twenty-five people were officially reported dead after the massacre, but later investigations identified remains of 44 people.

Successive government inquiries have never shown exactly how many died, but eyewitnesses claimed that bodies were carted away from the square and some estimates say that over 300 were killed.

The Mexican government acknowledged the massacre was a “state crime” on its 50th anniversary in 2018.

Earlier on Monday, interim head of Mexico City’s government Marti Bartes said that the incident transformed political culture from below.

He said that it “transformed universities, massively expanded higher education, incorporated new critical thinking into the social sciences, generated activists, opened the doors to new ideas such as feminism or sexual diversity.”