A priest who shelters stranded migrants needs police protection, a chopped-up body turns up with a threatening message, beheadings are on the rise, and the local press is too frightened to write about any of it. This is not northern Mexico, where traffickers created by drug prohibition fight for turf along the U.S. border and the Mexican government wages an open battle against them. This is the south, where the brutal Zetas organization is quietly spreading a reign of terror virtually unchallenged, all the way to the border with Guatemala — and across it.

The Mexican government has released a database it says covers all murders presumed to have a link to the country's drug prohibition war in which at least seven different drug trafficking organizations are fighting each other and federal forces deployed in a massive offensive against them launched in December 2006. The number of deaths has risen rapidly since then to total 34,612 up until the end of 2010, by far the most violent year so far with 15,273 people killed.

Drug trafficking organizations fighting over Mexico's richest city have launched a wave of attacks against police and rivals since New Year's Eve, crushing hopes of a fall in violence and alarming business leaders.

The body of a murdered man found dumped on a main road into Acapulco Monday brought the four-day death toll in the once peaceful Pacific coast Mexican resort city to 31. With the weekend toll, Acapulco is facing the highest levels of drug prohibition violence since President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug trafficking organizations in 2006.