By Stuart Ramsay, Chief Correspondent, In Mexico
In the hills above the town of Iguala, a group of families gather to start a search for new mass graves. They have already found three.
Above them, vultures swoop and turn in the deep blue skies.
Dogs had started turning up in nearby villages with human body parts.
Mexico has been in the grip of a staggering crime wave that saw, by some estimates, 120,000 people killed in the six years to 2012.
Another 27,000 people are missing. Rounded up by local police, they were handed to one of the country's notorious cartel gangs and "disappeared": a common expression succinct in its accurate brevity.
The families of the local "disappeared" know they are in the right place.
After about 20 minutes, another grave is identified. The searchers madly hack at the earth before a local forensics officer asks them to stop.
In the tearful exchange that follows the family members give a sense of their anger and outrage.
They berate the officer for the failings of the government, for the rampant corruption and the overarching power of the drug gangs.
"Young man, you get to finish your shift then you get to go. We can't, we have to stay here, we can't move from here," a woman shouts through her tears, pointing at the grave.
"We demand that the government come and take them out (of the ground). That they stop treating us like idiots, because that is what they have treated us like.
"People's family members are here, whether it be a brother or sister or child, they have to come and get them out."
It is heartbreaking stuff to witness. The testimonies of "disappeared" family members are uniformly upsetting and almost endless. So many people are affected it's remarkable.
The enormous illegal drug industry is to varying degrees at the root of everything.
The fate of the "disappeared" has exploded onto the national psyche once again after the abduction and probable murder of 43 students in September.
The problem for the government is the growing evidence of police and military collusion in this apparently unstoppable cycle of death.
In Iguala, for example, local villagers say that trucks bringing the latest victims of the violence passed their houses along roads closed by the police.
In their desperate attempt to recover their lost relatives, hundreds queue to give blood for DNA tests that may prove a link to bodies recovered from the hills.
They do not trust the government so an independent charity is on hand to guarantee the process.
A total of 170 families have come forward in the first couple of days of the testing process. That equates to between 400 and 500 "disappeared" people.
But this is a tiny town. State-wide and nationwide it runs into tens of thousands of dead people. Killed, often for no reason whatsoever.
The stories of the disappeared are all different; but they are linked by the involvement of crime gangs, law enforcement and the government often working hand in hand.
Susane is the wife of a senior police officer. He disappeared after a meeting with a cartel lieutenant. He was told his entire extended family would die if he failed to turn up.
She and he knew they would never see each other again.
"We knew it was either him or the family. He warned us he might not be coming back alive, that this was probably the last time we would see each other," she told me in the calm surroundings of a church.
"He thought he was the one who had to say goodbye to the family. He only asked for a blessing. We gave it to him. We kept pleading with him, but he didn't listen."
He has not been seen since.
:: You can watch an extended special report on the drugs cartels that are tearing Mexico apart, Narco State: Mexico's Drugs War, at 7.30pm on Friday, 5.30am and 4.30pm on Saturday, and 3.30am, 2.30pm and 8.30pm on Sunday.
Watch the report on on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 132 and Freesat channel 202.
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