Mexico was confronted Saturday with one of the grisliest massacres in years of drug violence after gang suspects confessed to slaughtering 43 missing students and dumping their charcoaled remains in a river.

The case has revulsed Mexico since gang-linked police attacked the young men in the southern state of Guerrero on September 26, in a night of violence that left six people dead and the 43 missing.

The confessions may have brought a tragic end to the mystery, which has sparked international outrage and protests in the biggest crisis of President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration.

But at the young men's Ayotzinapa teacher-training college, exhausted parents of the victims refuse to accept they are dead until DNA tests confirm their identities, saying the government has repeatedly fed them lies.