Police discover dead men on federal highway in Nayarit while scores of villagers flee their homes in Michoacán
Fierce fighting among apparent rival drug gangs in western Mexico has left 28 people dead on a highway, while in a nearby state more than 700 people fled villages that have become battlegrounds.
The violence, which appeared to be unrelated, escalated on Wednesday in the western states of Nayarit and Michoacán, where drug cartels have been warring over territory.
Police in Nayarit were initially responding to a complaint of a kidnapping by a group of armed men who escaped on a federal highway near the town of Ruiz, when they heard a report of a shootout, according to the state prosecutor's office.
They found 28 men lying dead and four others wounded, as well as bullet casings from high-powered weapons and 10 abandoned vehicles.
The statement released late on Wednesday by the attorney general's office gave no further details.
Earlier in the day, an official in the nearby western state of Michoacán said drug cartel violence had prompted frightened villagers to flee hamlets and take refuge at shelters set up at a church hall, recreation centre and schools.
It is at least the second time a large number of rural residents have been displaced by drug violence in Mexico. In November, about 400 people in the northern border town of Ciudad Mier took refuge in the neighbouring city of Ciudad Aleman following gun battles.
The Michoacán state civil defence director, Carlos Mandujano, said about 700 people spent Tuesday night at a water park in the town of Buenavista Tomatlan, with most sleeping under open thatched-roof structures.
Mandujano said state authorities were providing sleeping mats, blankets and food.
Residents told local authorities that gun battles between rival drug cartels had made it too dangerous for them to stay in outlying hamlets. The latest reports said arsonists were burning avocado farms in the nearby town of Acahuato.
The fighting in Michoacán is believed to involve rival factions of the La Familia drug cartel, some of whose members now call themselves "the Knights Templar".
Drug violence has been on the rise in Nayarit, a Pacific coast state known for its surfing and beach towns. In October, gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash in the capital of Tepic, an attack that police said bore the characteristics of organised crime. The bodies of 12 murder victims, eight of them partially burned, were found on a dirt road in Nayarit last year. Officials have not identified the gangs fighting there.
The Norway-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimates about 230,000 people in Mexico have been driven from their homes by the violence, often to stay with relatives or in the US.