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TOLUCA, Mexico (AP) — A violent drug cartel is suspected of leaving a severed human leg hanging from a pedestrian bridge Wednesday in the city of Toluca, just west of Mexico City.

The trunk of the body was left on the street below the bridge near the city’s center, along with handwritten signs signed by the Familia Michoacana cartel.

Other parts of the body were found later in another neighborhood, also with handwritten drug cartels signs nearby. The victim was apparently a man between the ages of 35 and 40.

A man passes an empty water storage building emblazoned with the slogan, "conserve water," in Spanish, Tuesday, May 9, 2023, in Tijuana, Mexico. Among the last cities downstream to receive water from the shrinking Colorado River, Tijuana is staring down a water crisis. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

What this means for many of Tijuana’s 2 million inhabitants is enduring frequent loss of water, having to pay for expensive trucked-in water, and living with uncertainty.

Forensic medical examiners work at the scene where an unidentified man was killed in Apatzingan, Mexico, Sunday, July 2, 2023. According to the victims, gunmen carjacked and, took their auto at gunpoint and used it to shoot another driver to death just a few blocks away. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

The drug cartel violence that citizen self-defense leader Hipolito Mora gave his life fighting against has flared anew just one day after he was buried.

CORRECTS DATE ACTIVIST WAS KILLED - Mourners arrive to the funeral of armed civilian defense leader Hipolito Mora and two of his bodyguards at his home in La Ruana, Mexico, Saturday, July 1, 2023. Mora, the leader of an armed civilian movement that once drove a drug cartel out of the western state of Michoacan, was killed on June 29th on a street in his hometown. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

One of the last leaders of Mexico’s anti-gang citizens’ movement has been buried alongside two of his faithful followers.

A person shades himself on a hot, sunny day in Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, Tuesday, June 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Mexico’s health authorities have belatedly released a report showing a significant spike in heat-related fatalities in the last two weeks.

Two other bodies were found elsewhere in the city Wednesday.

In a neighborhood on the city’s east side, police found another dismembered body, along with a sign similar to those in the first case.

And later, in an industrial neighborhood on the north side, a body was found in a burning car.

The mayor of Toluca, which is the capital of the State of Mexico, appealed for calm. The Familia Michoacana has dominated rural areas in the state for years, but may now be trying to take over the state capital.

“The issue of crime brings us all together, and we all have to fight it,” said Mayor Raymundo Martínez Carbajal.

Last week, threatening banners were left in another suburb of Toluca, and they were also signed by the Familia Michoacana.

The gang originated in the neighboring state of Michoacan in the early 2000s, and while it has been largely chased out of its home state, it has found a new lease on life in the State of Mexico and neighboring Guerrero state.

The Familia Michoacana has become known for carrying out ruthless, bloody ambushes of police in Mexico State and local residents in Guerrero.

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