At least 13 persons died on Wednesday in firefights between Brazilian police and drug dealers in Rio de Janeiro's notorious slums, state public safety secretary Jose Mariano Beltrame said.
Beltrame earlier said that 18 people had been killed, but in a press conference late on Wednesday lowered the toll.
"They were all criminals," he said.
PHOTO: AFP
Residents who removed a body from the area however told reporters that at least one of the victims was a worker.
Police launched a huge sweep through the so-called German Complex of 12 slums north of Rio de Janeiro, in which 100,000 people live largely under control of drug traffickers.
Some 1,350 officers joined in the operation to rid the slums of violent drug traffickers.
Police said that in the sweep they confiscated five assault rifles, pistols, 60 hand grenades, detonators, and four .30 caliber heavy machine guns. They also found 30k of marijuana and 40k of cocaine.
At least nine other people had bullet wounds, including a plain-clothes police officer and a 13-year-old girl shot in the leg. Area residents carried the girl out on a stretcher.
"The goal is to put an end to the traffickers' arsenals," said Beltrame, head of public safety of Rio de Janeiro state.
"We must retake control of the slums and instil public order," he said.
Beltrame said the force was made up of 1,200 local and federal police and 150 elite National Security Force police backed by three armored personnel carriers.
Police also used a bulldozer to topple barricades built by the traffickers, according to images on TV Globo News.
Businesses shuttered and eight area schools closed affecting some 4,000 pupils.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of