This is Guerreiro, south-west Mexico.
Mariela is a paramedic in a metropolis scorched by violence.
And Luis is a body collector in the most violent
city in a violent land.
We talked to some of those behind the violence, fuelled by drugs
and organised crime.
TRANSLATION: They murder each other, they killed innocent people.
They decapitate innocent people.
They hang innocent people.
This is a story of ordinary people living and dying
on Mexico's front line.
The story of a country at war with itself.
It's around midnight at a convenience store in Acapulco.
So far, so ordinary.
A child is playing on the floor.
Suddenly, a man enters pursued by another, who wants to kill him.
He's wrestled outside.
Then shot.
Imagine the terror of the shop workers, as the assassin
tries to finish him off.
But his pistol jams.
Reloaded, the gunman returns and shoots him again.
He dies 30 minutes later.
First on the scene is paramedic Mariela, unable to save another
victim of Mexico's gang wars.
Mariela's worked Acapulco's streets for almost a decade.
Her job is to help save lives, but too often these days,
she's just counting bodies.
She's on her way to another gangland hit.
And at the wheel of the ambulance is her colleague and husband Jorge.
We follow behind.
Shot and dumped, the indignity of it all.
And on hand, the military and police, but seemingly powerless
to stop the carnage.
This, another murder that shames Mexico.
Last year, more Mexicans were murdered in gang violence
than in any year on record.
Close to 30,000.
So far, 2018 is shaping up to be bloodier.
Luis Flores works in Acapulco's morgue.
And what a job it is.
A father of two and a trainee nurse, he comes to this hell every day.
You have to carefully pick your way through the litter
of decaying corpses.
We can see there are bodies all over here.
The capacity is, what, 100 bodies?
Sadly, because of the violence we have experienced here,
it's 320 or something here.
So there are bodies on the floor.
Not refrigerated, of course.
The capacity in the fridge, it's just overloaded.
That's how difficult the situation is here
for the authorities in Acapulco.
Just noticed the tag here on one of the body bags.
"Nombre desconocido", which means it's unidentified.
And at the bottom it says 13th of July, 2017.
So that's when the body was found.
More than six months ago.
No identification.
Nobody knows who it is, and nobody has come to claim it.
Most are young men, shot or stabbed.
Some beheaded and mutilated.
The victims of turf wars between rival gangs,
keen to display their depravity as a warning to others.
How difficult is it dealing with the numbers of homicides here?
And it's a job someone has to do, cleaning Acapulco's streets,
for which he gets paid little more than 500 US dollars a month.
The gangs aren't afraid of anyone.
This man's body has been dumped in broad daylight.
Sometimes, the killers are just teenagers, offered $50
to pull the trigger.
But this man shows signs of being tortured.
Back at the morgue, Luis helps the doctors trying
to determine the cause of death.
But is anyone in Mexico seriously trying to determine how the country
can escape this cycle of violence?
Foreigners used to flock to Acapulco for tequila and sunshine.
Now it's mostly Mexican tourists that fill the hotels.
Army boots on the ground haven't reassured many Americans,
advised this city is as dangerous as Syria or Afghanistan.
But Mexico is a land of competing realities.
And Mariela and Jorge, for just under 500 US dollars a month,
inhabit the world not far from the beach where lives
are snuffed out on a whim.
The pictures will help in the investigation,
but will the killer ever be found?
It's unlikely.
This is just one more unsolved gang murder.
Another tagged corpse for the morgue.
Back at base, a bit of downtime.
A little lunch.
But often, being left alone with their thoughts
is the worst time.
The murders are getting more savage, more depraved.
A taxi has been left abandoned in the middle of a busy highway.
The driver has fled, but left behind in the car is a package.
It's what, four o'clock, rush hour here in Acapulco.
Pulled up here, and the authorities are investigating this taxi,
they opened the boot and there in a cooler box
was a head, a severed head.
In fact, the lead investigator has just told me that it's in fact
the skin of the scalp of the head, and not the skull inside.
Incredible.
It's the third severed head we've come across in three days.
With every execution, each gang is sending a clear message -
don't mess with us.
It's been more than a decade since the government declared war
on the drug cartels.
High profile leaders have been killed or imprisoned,
but their replacements now lead smaller splinter groups,
ruthlessly fighting for control of the drugs market,
as well as extortion and protection rackets.
And it's when night falls that there's money to be made.
I've got some coke, some ecstasies, some LSD.
These drugs, you can get it from a cartel.
This former dealer didn't want to be identified for good reason.
A conspiracy of silence helps protect the gangs.
Break it and you could end up dead.
So those drugs you showed me, they were for your personal use.
But you used to be a dealer, didn't you?
What was that like?
It's a dangerous business.
Really, all your friends are dead?
They were killing them because they were independent dealers?
So we've seen all these dead bodies, and we're wondering,
what is it that these people have done to deserve to die like that?
Why do the cartels kill people?
Another severed head is recovered from a crime scene.
Yet, just yards away, there are crowds of people.
If they saw anything, they are not letting on.
There are families here, there are kids.
Yet that headless body was dumped just over there, right next to them.
But no one wants to talk to talk to us there.
They are obviously too scared.
It's 8pm, and Luis has another grim collection to make.
A man's been shot in the head.
A mother's only son.
It's believed the dead man may have refused to pay a criminal
gang extortion money.
His name was Elvis Mendoza.
He was 25.
Now he's in Luis's care.
His name was Elvis Mendoza.
He was 25.
Now he's in Luis's care.
of the violence on these streets, they learned their ways
in the drugs trade.
An industry that's worth many billions, but makes life cheap.
Well, we went to talk to some of those in the drug cartels
who are ultimately responsible for all this.
Just over 1000 miles away, up the Pacific coast,
we take a midnight drive to a safe house in the state of Sinaloa.
We were never told the exact location for our rendezvous.
The cartel here is one of the most powerful in the world.
And the man who's agreed to speak with us is a top lieutenant.
He says it's the fracturing of the big cartels that has led
to so much more violence.
TRANSLATION: For years things had been fine because we are unified.
There's only one cartel, the Sinaloa cartel, and it's big.
If you go to Jalisco or Guerreiro, the fight is between criminal
groups, not cartels.
It's because they are small groups.
They murder each other, they kill innocent people,
they decapitate innocent people, they hang innocent people.
When we point out drugs ruin lives, he defends the business he's in,
saying that no one forces people to become addicts.
And he claims that many politicians work with the cartels.
The government says corruption is rare and is
determined to stamp it out.
We kept the government cooperation.
They cooperate with the cartel.
I can guarantee you everything is fine here.
Drugs generates lots of money, and money makes people greedy.
Sinaloa is not going to have a situation like that,
because we are already unified.
We have arrangements, and everything is OK.
But other places in the South will not change because
they are not cartels.
They are criminal groups.
Back in Acapulco, just five minutes from our hotel,
we came across a site that for many now defines this country.
More blood flowing through Mexico's streets.
And this, the first of three murder scenes we visited in eight hours.
And there were others.
Mariela and Jorge reflect on a bloody week.
The memory of that very public killing will linger.
Especially for the tourists who saw what happened.
And have the pictures to prove it.
The sun sets on another grisly day, with the gangs clocking
up their 33rd victim in the 12 days we've been in Acapulco.
And that's what everybody wants.
But ordinary people here are exhausted and overwhelmed.
Stuck in the middle of a war on drugs that Mexico
seems to be losing.