More than 1,000 Brazilian police backed by helicopters and naval armored vehicles took over a favela near Rio de Janeiro’s international airport on Sunday, less than three months before the FIFA World Cup.
The swiftly conducted dawn operation was the latest attempt to drive drug gangs out of the notorious Mare shanty town, a haven for organized crime and one of the city’s most dangerous places.
The Mare complex, home to 130,000 people, is a potential through route for tens of thousands of soccer fans flying in and out of the metropolis, which is scheduled to stage seven World Cup matches — including the July 13 final.
Members of the feared Special Police Operations Battalion swarmed through the favela in 15 minutes without facing resistance, while helicopters buzzed overhead.
Police had their weapons trained on the rooftops, but apart from a few bars close to the entrance of Mare, the labyrinth of narrow streets was empty and dark.
At sunrise, police raised a Brazilian flag in the main plaza and soon thereafter were giving horseback rides to local supporters.
The operation appeared partly orchestrated for the media, since police had already taken over some of the favela last week, making 57 arrests and confiscating drugs and weapons.
At least 13 more people were detained, with authorities also seizing 450kg of drugs, mostly marijuana.
Authorities have recently stepped up efforts to quell violence in Rio as the World Cup looms, but denied that the Mare operation was directly linked to the upcoming soccer extravaganza.
A huge slum “pacification” program has been in place since 2008 aimed at making the city — which is also to host the 2016 Olympics — safer.
In recent years, Police Pacification Units (UPPs) have been installed in 174 Rio favelas, home to about 600,000 people.
Rio’s security secretariat said 1,180 officers were involved in the operation, backed by at least 14 armored vehicles and four helicopters.
Intelligence services say drug traffickers who left Mare after last week’s announcement of the planned occupation could come back later, meaning authorities face a long-term battle to keep the volatile area under control.
As the sun rose, shops slowly began to open, but many residents were irritated by the presence of security forces and journalists. Few wanted to speak with reporters.
“Me, I think it’s fine, the state must be present everywhere in Rio,” said a trucker, who only gave his first name, Jorge.
“Now it will depend on the police who move, here because there are those among them who commit abuses,” he added.
After decades battling organized crime in the poor communities surrounding the city, authorities had hoped the favela “pacification” program would bring down crime.
However, renewed violence this year has claimed the lives of eight police officers — four of them in “pacified” districts.
Keeping a lid on crime has become key to Rio’s bid to turn the city into an international showcase for the World Cup and South America’s first Olympics.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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