The women seem to be some of the toughest in the Mexican drug war. They step-up and stay in command while the men appear to be quitting and running ... And these woman are not shown any sort of chivalry by the drug thugs ...

Baring her mutilated body for the camera, Maria Santos Gorrostieta shows the horrific results of two assassination attempts by Mexican criminals. As the mayor of the town of Tiquicheo, she has become a key target for drug gangs who have turned the country into a grotesquely violent narco-state.

But despite being scarred physically and mentally by the attacks, the extraordinarily brave Mrs Gorrostieta remains defiant.

'I wanted to show you my wounds because I'm not ashamed that my body is mutilated like this,' she said. 'It is the result of shameful acts which have marked my life and the lives of my children. But I am not ashamed. There are some that have said I made these attacks up. But I did not and now I show the physical proof to those who have doubted me.'

Mrs Gorrostieta, a mother-of-three, was first attacked on October 15, 2009 when she was driving through the town of El Limone with her husband. A group of armed men ambushed their vehicle, spraying the car with bullets. The mayor was left terribly injured while her husband José Sánchez Chávez was killed.

Despite suffering such a devastating loss and battling back to fitness, Mrs Gorrostieta was determined not to be defeated. She returned to work and had made remarkable progress. But in January last year, she was once again ambushed by armed and masked men. This time her injuries were even worse. She had to have a colostomy bag and suffers constant pain.

'But I can't quit, not when I have three children whom I have to teach by example.
'Beside that I have the memories of my husband, the father of my children who knew how to teach the value of things and fight for them. He is no longer with us but he remains the guiding light for my decisions.
Every day I fight and battle in my mind to erase the memories of the terrible things I lived through,' she said.

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