Chilling pictures of a man lying dead in the sand in crime-plagued Acapulco encapsulate the brutal violence gripping the once-idyllic tourist hotspot in Mexico.
Tourists found the unnamed man’s body floating face-down in the water off Caletilla Beach after a suspected shooting.
Armed troops and forensics personnel were seen carrying the body off the tourist-packed sands, on Mexico’s Pacific coast.
One soldier had to stop a lifeguard from taking a picture of the corpse on the sands that have become all too accustomed to such brutality.
It is unclear how the man died, but Guerrero state, like many others in Mexico, has long been crippled by gang and drug violence.
Tourists and residents in Acapulco look at the body that washed up on shore on April 15. (Photo: Reuters)
More than 25,000 murders were recorded in Mexico last year as rival drug gangs increasingly splintered into smaller, more merciless groups.
The Guerrero region itself is home to numerous poppy fields used to produce opium, the main ingredient in heroin.
In Acapulco, locals who depend on tourism as their main source of income are understood to bring guns to the beach as protection.
