RIO DE JANEIRO: Residents of Rio’s northern slums braced for more violence on Friday as hundreds of reinforcements joined a widening crackdown on drug gangs that has killed at least 30 people in six days.
Armored vehicles rumbled through the pockmarked streets of the Vila Cruzeiro slum on Thursday as elite police units backed by helicopters and snipers battled drug traffickers under a cloud of black smoke from torched buses.
Police claimed to have wrested control of the densely populated area back from drug gangs but TV helicopters filmed scores of armed men fleeing up the surrounding hills into neighbouring districts. “We’ve taken an important step, but nothing’s been won,” state security chief Jose Beltrame told reporters, warning that operations would continue.
“It’s important to arrest people, to gather up drugs and ammunition, but it’s more important to get them out of the territory,” he said, referring to the drug traffickers that rule many of Rio’s largest slums. Brazil’s defence ministry meanwhile approved the deployment of another 800 troops, 10 armored vehicles and two Air Force helicopters to support the operations, an indication that the fighting was far from over.
Some 300 federal police are also being dispatched to bolster local forces. Six M113 armored personnel carriers armed with .50 caliber machine guns drove through Vila Cruzeiro as gunmen attacked police posts with machine guns and torched dozens of vehicles. It was the first time armored military vehicles penetrated slums controlled by drug traffickers.
The tank-like M113s and several helicopters accompanied thousands of heavily armed troops from the military police and the navy. A record number of calls flooded a complaints hotline as several thousand residents tried to help authorities nab attack suspects.
Residents expressed shock at the scale of the operation, but many welcomed what they said was long-overdue action to combat the gangs and, in a sign the crackdown may be working, spoke out openly in support of the police.
