The Mexican government's intense battle against the drug cartels which supply the US market took a grisly turn this week, with a report given to goverment claiming that almost 23,000 had been killed in drug related violence since 2006.
The date coincides with the launch of a government crackdown on drug gangs at the end of 2006.
Opposition politicians and experts in the drug trade are asking questions of the US-backed deployment, with claims that the flow of drugs to the US continues unabated while human rights abuses are on the increase.
And each week, tales of viscous disputes surface. On Tuesday, the bodies of six men who had reportedly been tortured and shot in the head were found at the side of a road in Cuernavaca, a city home to the battle to front an important cartel.
The new figure of 22,743 deaths was given to lawmakers on Monday during a congressional debate on the controversial use of the army in Mexico's battle against its powerful drug gangs, the source said, declining to be named.
3,365 murders in two months
It was a rise of more than 7,000 compared with previous official estimates, and showed 3,365 murders between January and March this year, they added.
Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Montt confirmed in a news conference on Tuesday that new figures had been passed on to lawmakers without giving further details.
The worst-hit regions were in northern areas near the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border with the United States, which lie on key drug trafficking routes into the lucrative US market, the source said.
Violence has spiked since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on organized crime, involving tens of thousands of troops, when he took office after disputed elections at the end of 2006.
According to the report, the hardest hit state was Chihuahua, with 6,757 people killed.
Over the past three years, 977 gunfights were fought between drug gangs and government forces, while 309 more were fought between rival gangs.
