Battle-scarred ghost town bears mute witness to Mexico’s drug wars

A bullet-riddled sign welcomes visitors to a Michoacán town that found itself on the frontline of Mexico’s drug wars. Photograph: Emilio Espejel/The Guardian

Those who knew El Limoncito remember a welcoming and industrious community of lime farmers who poured their sweat into the soils of Mexico’s sun-baked backlands in search of a better life. Then the drug conflict exploded and everything changed.