Military tanks have rolled into a
Rio de Janeiro slum as Brazilian security forces fought bloody battles with
violent drug gangs in the city’s poorest neighbourhoods.
A total of 30 people have been
killed in five days of clashes as authorities try to crack down on traffickers,
police said.
Tanks rolled into Vila Cruzeiro
slum, in the north of the city, and armoured vehicles, helicopters and
thousands of heavily-armed agents have also been deployed.
Gangs are fighting back by opening
fire on police stations and setting cars and buses ablaze, police said.
The clashes are testing Rio
authorities, who need to prove they can keep law and order ahead of two of the
planet’s largest sporting events – Rio is to host the World Cup in 2014 and the
Olympics two years later.
Thirteen suspected drug traffickers
have been killed in the battles.
Police have targeted 20 slums,
known as favelas, and are now focusing on Vilo Cruzeiro, where dealers have
taken refuge after they were forced out of other areas.
Since Sunday, 47 people have been
arrested – some of them caught holding bottles filled with petrol.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
said earlier this week: “We will do whatever it takes so that the good
guys defeat those who prefer to live lives of crime.”
About two million people in Rio – a
third of its population – live in more than 1,000 slums.
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