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.

“We’ve taken an important step, but nothing’s been won,” state security chief Jose Beltrame told reporters, warning that operations would continue.

“It’s important to arrest people, to gather up drugs and ammunition, but it’s more important to get them out of the territory,” he said, referring to the drug traffickers that rule many of Rio’s slums.

Brazil’s defence ministry, meanwhile, approved the deployment of another 800 troops, 10 armoured vehicles and two Air Force helicopters to support the operations, an indication the fighting was far from over. Some 300 federal police are also being dispatched to bolster local forces.

A record number of calls flooded a complaints hotline, as several thousand residents tried to help authorities nab suspects.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s a real war operation,” said Elias, a 44-year-old school principal. “But it is necessary. This is the only way to confront the traffickers.”

Others blamed local authorities for allowing the situation to fester, and attributed the new-found urgency to the city’s hosting of the 2014 World Cup and the Olympics two years later.