José Barajas, who was snatched from his home, joins the ever-swelling ranks of thousands of desaparecidos, victims of the drug conflict that shows no sign of easing

As he set off into the wilderness under a punishing midday sun, Jesse Barajas clutched an orange-handled machete and the dream of finding his little brother, José.

“He’s not alive, no. They don’t leave people alive,” the 62-year-old said as he slalomed through the parched scrubland of tumbleweed and cacti where they had played as kids. “Once they take someone they don’t let you live.”

LeBaron family relatives say nine victims, mainly children, dead in attack on dirt road between Chihuahua and Sonora states

• Why Mexico’s police ‘don’t stand a chance’ against cartels

Cartel gunmen in northern Mexico have killed at least six children and three women in an ambush that left six other children wounded, one baby unharmed and reports that another child was still missing.

Victims and survivors of the attack near the border between the states of Sonora and Chihuahua all belong to a well-known Mormon family that is based in Mexico but has dual US/Mexican citizenship and deep roots on both sides of the frontier.

In a country with nearly 100 murders a day President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has vowed to tackle the social roots of crime but change is slow to come

• Mexico in the drug war: ‘A cemetery of bodies with no story, and stories with no body’
• This article contains images some readers may find distressing

Brianna Rojas seemed her usual breezy self as she set off for work.

“I’ll see you later!” friends remember the 20-year-old calling out as she headed to her insurance company’s bright yellow offices on Tijuana’s Calle del Carmen.