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Brazil police step up Rio gang violence drive

25 November 2010 22:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Police in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro have deployed armoured vehicles at a slum entrance as operations continue to stem a wave of violence, APA reports quoting BBC News.
On Thursday morning, six vehicles took up position at the Vila Cruzeiro shanty town in the north of the city.
Clashes in Rio since the weekend have left more than 20 people dead.
Drug gangs have been burning vehicles and opening fire in an attempt to halt police operations aimed at pacifying the slums, officials say.
Some 150 members of the Special Police Operations Battalion (Bope) backed up by the navy’s armoured vehicles began deploying in the north of the city on Thursday morning, Brazilian media reported.
Staffing was also stepped up at a nearby hospital ahead of the operation.
Vehicles on fire
Officials said that drug traffickers had regrouped in Vila Cruzeiro after being expelled from other shanty towns in the city.
At least 23 people have been killed since the weekend when the latest wave of violence erupted.
Heavily armed men have been stopping cars and buses, robbing passengers and setting vehicles alight.
Some 17,500 police officers have been deployed to try to stop the violence.
Rio’s favelas have for years been controlled by heavily armed drug trafficking gangs.
The city’s pacification programme is aimed at improving security and the rule of law in the run-up to the football World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games two years later.