Crackdown on drug gangs intensifies in slums

RESIDENTS of Rio’s northern slums braced for more violence as hundreds of reinforcements joined a widening crackdown on drug gangs that has killed at least 30 people in six days.

Armoured vehicles rumbled through the pockmarked streets of the Vila Cruzeiro slum, as elite police units backed by helicopters and snipers battled drug traffickers under a cloud of black smoke from torched buses.

Police claimed to have wrested control of the densely populated area back from drug gangs, but TV helicopters filmed scores of armed men fleeing up the surrounding hills into neighbouring districts.