Dozen of students activists were hospitalized in the Mexican state of Guerrero after coming across state and federal authorities.

According to the Los Angeles Times, around 150 students traveled in eight buses from the capital city of Chilpancingo to the rural town of Ayotzinapa on Wednesday.

The students are from the same Ayotzinapa teachers college that the missing 43 students who, last September, were detained by police and subsequently disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

The Guerrero-based human rights group Tlachinollan says that state police began pursuing the students a little after 4 p.m.

Tlachinollan claims that the students were on their way back from raising money on behalf of the missing students.

Florencio Salazar, the secretary of the Guerrero government, informed the media that the students blocked the highway as they were attempting to hand out leaflets informing about their cause.

Authorities say that at least 13 students were detained but were later handed over to a local human rights commission. Tlachinollan says that around 300 officers were involved in Wednesday's incident.

Eighteen students were hospitalized with injuries.

Roman Hernandez Riva, an attorney for the human watch group, has called for justice. "State agents act with a level of brutality that can't be justified under any circumstances," said Hernandez Riva.

According to The Guardian, the school at the center of the student protests is keenly watched and often targeted by authorities.

Set up after the Mexican revolution in the 1920s, the Ayotzinapa teachers college provides students with education as well as meals and a place to sleep. The plan for the school was to combine academic subjects with practical knowledge and to encourage social activism.

A student named Mario, who attends the college, spoke of the special emotional burden that comes from going to a school that has seen so much tragedy.

"The worst is seeing the parents when they visit," the student explained, "We see them sitting in the chairs their children used to use."