Police have occupied a group of adjacent favelas in Rio de Janeiro, the latest slum “pacification” aimed at driving out drug traffickers and improving security in the coastal city.
Colonel Luis Castro Menezes, commander of the military police in Rio, says not a single shot was fired during the 50-minute operation on Sunday involving 590 police officers and 180 military troops in the Lins de Vasconcelos slums in the city’s north.
The slums include 12 communities with about 15,000 inhabitants.
Photo: AFP
Authorities plan to install two permanent police stations in the slums as part of the city’s “pacification” program.
Television images showed the zone’s commercial section opening on Sunday without incident and inhabitants going about their regular business.
Backed by Brazilian marines in armored vehicles, more than 1,000 police poured into a dozen slum neighborhoods in northern Rio just after dawn, meeting no resistance, Agence France-Presse journalists on the scene said.
“It’s one more step in the direction of peace,” Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral said.
After sweeping through the area, police began going house to house to conduct searches and question suspects.
“That population has been clamoring for this for a long time,” Rio security chief Jose Mariano Beltrame said.
The deployment of so-called Police Pacification Units aims to wrest control of poor hillside neighborhoods from drug gangs and bring down violent crime in the city that will play host to the World Cup next year and Olympic Games in 2016.
The police tactics have come under scrutiny after 10 members of one pacification unit were arrested last week in the torture-slaying of a bricklayer who disappeared in July from Rocinha, the city’s largest favela with 70,000 inhabitants.
Amarildo de Souza’s disappearance set off protests by outraged residents demanding authorities explain what happened to him.
His body has not been found, but investigators say he was tortured to death by members of a pacification unit who were seen on a surveillance tape taking him into custody.
Police inspector Ellen Souto, who is heading the police investigation into the death, said 22 other people have charged they also were tortured with electric shocks and hot wax.
Cabral, under attack over the police scandal, defended the pacification units, who is known by their Portuguese acronym as the UPP.
“I lament the conduct of those police officers, which was abominable, but without a doubt it will not be a mark against the UPP,” he said.
He said investigations of crimes like De Souza’s disappearance was only possible when communities were pacified.
“How many crimes went unpunished before the police’s arrival in the hillsides,” he said.
With the two new stations, Rio now has 36 Police Pacification Units in its slums.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese