Cartel violence has reshaped daily life across Michoacan, where shifting criminal alliances and growing extortion have left communities either arming themselves or living under terror.

"Los Viagras killed my brother and they are coming for me too," said Guadalupe Mora, convinced the gang aligned with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has marked him next.

Public life in Michoacan's La Ruana has hollowed out since the 2023 killing of his brother, Hipólito Mora, a founder of a self-defense group, and a string of recent assassinations of prominent local figures.

Even before the killing of a popular mayor in another town last month prompted a new military deployment by the Mexican government, some communities across Michoacan had already taken up arms to fend off the extortions of the cartels.

Others found themselves trapped between rival groups fighting over invisible borders in a state where criminal organizations fracture and realign so rapidly that authorities struggle to respond.

"We had to leave our house, our animals," said a woman who fled a nearby community and requested anonymity for her safety. "It’s even harder for the children to hear bombs, gunshots all night and sleep under the bed."

A few miles away, Rev. Gilberto Vergara delivered Mass in a community near Apatzingan that holds barely 100 residents.

Vergara has become one of the few people still willing to speak publicly in Michoacan’s violence-torn region of Tierra Caliente, where silence often means survival.

"Organized crime groups continue to operate," he told The Associated Press. "The methods are different, perhaps more cruel. Maybe now we can talk about terrorism."

Days earlier, an elderly man had reportedly driven his motorcycle over a land mine that exploded beneath him. Residents say drones, mines and nightly gunfire have become routine, while official intervention remains rare even near military posts.

"In the face of the tepid (response) of the Mexican government, the ineptitude of the Mexican government, the indolence of the Mexican government, it has to be a foreign government that sets the pace," said Vergara when asked about the possibility of U.S. involvement.

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would be "okay" with launching strikes to stop drug cartels as security concerns grow and political tensions rise for President Claudia Sheinbaum.

A few weeks earlier, a teenage gunman killed Carlos Manzo, the popular mayor of Uruapan, on Nov. 1 during Day of the Dead festivities – despite a 22-person security detail including National Guard troops. He was hit seven times and died later at a hospital, a crime prosecutors say was organized by criminal groups.

In response, Sheinbaum launched the Michoacan Plan for Peace and Justice, deploying more troops and promising new spending in Michoacan to tackle extortion and restore public security. Similar efforts have faltered before.

Authorities say 17 drug laboratories were dismantled in the past two weeks and last week, authorities arrested seven bodyguards suspected of being involved in Manzo’s assassination.

Still, Michoacan remains a battleground among multiple criminal organizations, some of which were designated as terrorist organizations by the United States - including Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), United Cartels and La Nueva Familia Michoacana - along with numerous smaller splinter groups.

The groups clash using drones, 3D-printed grenade launchers, and improvised explosives, while extortion fuels their finances as much as drug trafficking, in a seemingly endless spiral of violence.

Far from the highways and city checkpoints, the Indigenous autonomous community of Sevina has mounted its own defense.

In the state’s Indigenous Purépecha highlands, armed residents patrol the forests each night, determined to block cartel incursions. The patrols are community-run, though partly government-funded.

A cartel squad tried to enter Sevina in March, prompting the village to double its security presence. Several months after that incident, a group of armed men -allegedly members of organized crime - attacked community guards in the neighboring autonomous town of Cheran, killing one of them.

"Those who can should take care of their communities," says David Chavez, one of the night watchmen standing guard over the darkened mountains. "May they fight and be strong."

AP Video by Fernanda Pesce