Durango government believes victims may be gang members as decapitated corpses found for second time in a week

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

The naked bodies of eight decapitated men have been found dumped along roads in a Mexican city plagued by increasingly deadly conflict between rival drug gangs.

Six of the corpses were found along a highway leading out of the capital of the northern state of Durango, with their heads lying nearby, said the state attorney general's office.

The two other bodies were found in another street in Durango city. One was identified as the remains of Gerardo Galindo Meza, the deputy director of a city prison who had been kidnapped on Monday.

Galindo's head was on a different street corner, accompanied by a threatening message signed by a drug gang, the attorney general's office said in a statement.

It was the second time this week that decapitated corpses have been found in Durango state. Eleven bodies were found on Monday, including six left opposite a school in the state capital.

Meanwhile, soldiers digging at mass graves in five places around the city on Wednesday uncovered another eight bodies – seven men and one woman, bringing the total number of victims there to 196, said the Durango public safety department.

Durango is one of Mexico's most dangerous states. Its murder rate has more than doubled over the past two years. At least 1,025 killings were reported in 2010, compared to 930 in 2009 and 430 in 2008, according to government figures.

Authorities suspect some of the most-wanted drug kingpins may be hiding in the mountainous state, which has been a battleground between the Sinaloa, Zetas and Beltran Leyva cartels.

Families of people who have disappeared in Durango have come forward to ask whether their relatives may have been buried in the mass graves, according to Juan Rosales, the deputy state public safety secretary. But he said the identification process has overwhelmed the state government, prompting it to seek help from central government.

Durango's secretary for government, Hector Vela, said many of the victims are likely to be gang members killed by rivals. But some may be missing police officers, and others may be victims of kidnapping and extortion attempts.

Only one body has so far been identified – a 31-year-old man who had been reported missing several months ago. His brother claimed the body.

Drug violence has killed more than 34,000 people in Mexico since the president, Felipe Calderón, launched a military-led crackdown on the cartels in December 2006.

Mexico has launched an ad campaign to counter its image as a dangerous country and the negative impact on its vital tourist industry of US travel alerts warning Americans of violence south of the border.

The country is spending millions of dollars on print media and billboard ads in US cities showing its ancient pyramids and sunny beaches to sway Americans from cancelling their visits.

The drug violence is occurring far from the most popular resorts such as Cancun, Huatulco, Ixtapa, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos, Mexico Tourism Board CEO Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete said.