Some 53 people have been killed and 51 others are missing in Mexico's western Sinaloa state since rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel began clashing on Sept 9, local authorities said on Friday, with gruesome violence showing no signs of abating.

At least 30 people have been killed in the past two weeks in Mexico’s northern state of Sinaloa as two factions of the powerful Sinaloa cartel continue to clash.

Mexican authorities logged seven homicides in the western state of Sinaloa on Friday, the latest violence to plague an area where increasingly frequent shootouts are fueling fears of the possible start of an intra-cartel war.