About 250 police officers backed up by military armored vehicles seized control of a suburban Rio slum on Tuesday after six missing teenagers were found dead there with gunshot wounds and signs of torture.
The police said a force would remain in the Chatuba favela, located in the town of Mesquita north of Rio, on a permanent basis to flush out drug traffickers blamed for a surge of violence in the impoverished community.
Police said a dozen people have been killed in violent incidents over the past three days, including the six teenagers.
“Urgent action was necessary to bring back calm in this area in the wake of a significant number of barbaric crimes committed this weekend by drug traffickers who dominate Chatuba,” the public security ministry said in a statement.
State authorities have since 2008 moved to wrest control of some of Rio’s sprawling slums ahead of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.
About 5,500 members of police pacification units have been deployed in 144 Rio favelas, most in the city’s southern tourist area.
The force was deployed in Chatuba after six young men turned up dead on Monday on a roadside near the slum. The youths, who were between the ages of 16 and 19 and had no criminal records, had disappeared after swimming in a waterfall on Saturday.
“They were tortured. It was a barbaric crime. I think that the criminals killed them in that manner to show how powerful they are,” Sandra Ornelas, a police officer in the neighboring town of Nilopolis, told reporters on Monday.
Police are looking for a seventh 19-year-old man who also disappeared on Saturday.
They added that 10 people have been detained so far, including three for possession of cocaine.
Police intelligence officers believe the killings were ordered by a local drug baron identified as Juninho Cagao and two accomplices, O Globo’s G1 Web site quoted Colonel Frederico Caldas, a military police spokesman, as saying.
A force of 112 militarized police officers will eventually set up a permanent post in the favela, like in other slums in Rio.
Brazilian Human Rights Minister Maria do Rosario said the killings “cannot go unpunished.”
“I spoke with [Rio] Governor [Sergio] Cabral and he assured me that all measures will be taken to identify those responsible for this slaughter,” the official Agencia Brasil quoted her as saying.
Mesquita Mayor Artur Messias spoke of a surge in violence over the past few years in the town, which is home to 40,000 people.
“We noticed that violence increased with the presence of drug traffickers who migrated here after being kicked out of Rio. The [Rio] governor and the police leadership are aware of it,” G1 quoted the mayor as saying.
Police urged slum residents to collaborate, name criminals and identify their hideouts and drug and weapon caches. People were told to always carry their identity cards with them.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
New Zealand is open to expanding its frigate fleet beyond its current two vessels, with New Zealand Minister of Defence Chris Penk saying “no options are off the table” as the government weighs buying new warships from Japan or the UK. The government yesterday said it is looking to replace its two aging Anzac-class frigates, which were both commissioned almost 30 years ago. The UK’s Type 31 and Japan’s Mogami-class warships are the options under consideration. Speaking in an interview, Penk said there is potential to increase the number of frigates the nation purchases. “We need a certain amount of capability as a
The Philippine Coast Guard yesterday said it deployed aircraft to issue radio warnings to a Chinese research ship in a disputed area of the South China Sea “swarming” with vessels from Beijing’s so-called maritime militia. The research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 33 (向陽紅33), which is capable of supporting submersible craft, was operating near a reef in the contested Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The Chinese ship was deploying a service boat toward the Spratly’s Iroquois Reef on Wednesday when it was spotted by a coast guard plane, “confirming ongoing unauthorized [marine scientific research]
RSS