MEXICO CITY: At least 37 people were killed on Friday in a gunfight with federal police in Mexico’s troubled western state of Michoacan, in one of the bloodiest clashes in the country’s drug war.

Two police officers also died in the shootout in the municipality of Tanhuato, near the border with Jalisco state, a federal government official said.

The overall death toll of 39 was a “preliminary figure”, the official said on condition of anonymity. Local media said as many as 43 armed civilians were killed.

The official did not provide details but local media said the armed group opened fire as a police convoy traveled along a road.

The gunmen took cover in a ranch, where an intense gun battle ensued, according to Radio Formula.

Another official said the government would make an official announcement late in the day. The security cabinet was reportedly heading to the area.

Michoacan and Jalisco have endured some of the worst violence in a drug war that began to escalate in 2006, when the government deployed troops to combat cartels.

More than 80,000 have been killed and another 22,000 gone missing nationwide in the past nine years.The Jalisco New Generation drug cartel has launched deadly ambushes against police this year in Jalisco state, but the identity or criminal affiliation of the armed civilians in Friday’s clash was not immediately known.

Tanhuato is near Yurecuaro, a town where a former vigilante leader who was running for mayor was shot dead during a campaign event last week.

Farmers formed vigilante forces in Michoacan in 2013 to drive out the Knights Templar drug cartel, which has been weakened by arrests of its top leaders.

The Yurecuaro candidate, Enrique Hernandez of the leftist Morena party, was killed by gunmen in a vehicle while three people were wounded.

The government last year turned the vigilantes into a “rural defense “force, but the movement has been marred by deadly infighting since then.

In December, 11 people died in a shootout between two self-defense groups.

Tanhuato is also near the border with Jalisco state, where the powerful Jalisco New Generation drug cartel has battled security forces in deadly clashes this year.

The municipality is a short drive from the town of La Barca, where 64 bodies were unearthed from mass graves in 2013.

The New Generation cartel has taken the authorities head-on this year, killing seven soldiers and a policewoman when they took down a military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade on May 1.

The attack on the helicopter came on the day the government announced Operation Jalisco, a military and police strategy against the New Generation cartel.

In April, the cartel killed 15 state police officers on a highway near the Jalisco village of Soyatan. A month earlier, the gang killed five federal police gendarmes in the town of Ocotlan.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play