Mexico village a ghost town after killings and cartel warning: "Either you leave or you'll die"

Escorted by heavily armed soldiers, a Mexican farmer returns to his ransacked ranch house near the front line of a war between drug cartels, whose acronyms are scrawled on bullet-pocked walls.

Recently recaptured by the security forces, Palmas Altas in the northern state of Zacatecas is now a ghost town, apart from a few well-fed dogs walking under a blazing sun.

A burnt-out pickup truck is left abandoned at the entrance to the village, which sits on an arid plateau at the foot of mountains.