Rodolfo Chagoya was about to cut firewood near the El Sol ranch in western Mexico when suddenly, he said, "I heard 'rat-at-at-at!' It was a horrible thing."

The corn farmer said Friday's gunfight that killed 42 criminal suspects and one federal police officer made him even more afraid of working his plot of land in the violent region.

The ranch was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles in nearly a decade of drug conflicts in Mexico, with burning vehicles blowing up and assault rifles echoing across corn fields.

The shootout took place in Tanhuato, Michoacan state, near the border with Jalisco. The two states have endured some of the worst violence in the drug war.

This month, a mayoral candidate was assassinated in Yurecuaro, a Michoacan town near Tanhuato ahead of June 7 elections.

The mayor of Tanhuato, Gustavo Garibay, was assassinated by an armed group in March 2014. The municipality's secretary general was also murdered.

In La Barca, a Jalisco municipality bordering the two states, 64 bodies were unearthed from mass graves in 2013.

"There's a lot of missing and dead people," an elderly man who refused to give his name said in Tanhuato. "This is no man's land."

- 'Western drug corridor' -

The Jalisco New Generation drug cartel is the dominant criminal group in the region. Earlier this month, it downed a military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, killing seven soldiers and a policewoman. It killed 20 other police officers since March.

Despite their exposure to violence, residents of the region were shocked by the intensity of Friday's battle, even though they didn't witness it.

"You don't get used to things like that," Chagoya said under his straw hat in the nearby town of Ecuandureo, while a friend lamented that he was unable to sell products Friday because people were hiding inside their homes.

Chagoya said he often sees "bad people" cross the fields, though he never came face to face with armed gangsters.

The region is known as the "western drug corridor" with mountains that provide cover for labs producing synthetic drugs that are smuggled into the United States.

The New Generation, a former wing of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, now dominates the regional underworld after fighting the ultra-violent Zetas gang in Jalisco and the Knights Templar criminal group in neighboring Michoacan.

President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration launched on May 1 an operation to dismantle the New Generation, whose attacks on police has made it a top target. Friday's clash was part of the efforts to break up the group.

- 'Small town, big hell' -

The local population, meanwhile, is afraid to openly talk about living in fear of the New Generation cartel.

Many in Tanhuato claim they didn't even hear Friday's gunfight, which authorities said lasted three hours and involved a police helicopter.

"I didn't know about this. I don't get out of my house," said a woman who sells clothes from her house before abruptly closing her door.

It is a scene repeated in many parts of Mexico, where people are too afraid of retaliation to discuss cartel problems in their towns.

"One of the most sacred places we have is the church and even there we can't talk about these (cartel) people. There are eyes and ears everywhere," said a man selling flowerpots.

"Small town, big hell," he said.
Source: AFP