Brazilian Army Trying to Wrestle Back Rio Favela Lost to Drug Dealers

Brazilian Army at Rio's Complexo do Alemão favela While Brazil was celebrating this September 7 its 1822 independence from Portugal – a national holiday – Brazilian Armed Forces were engaged in trying to regain control from the drug dealers of one of Brazil’s largest favelas.

The Alemão Complex in Rio de Janeiro, a shantytown pacified only a few weeks ago as part of the efforts to secure the city for the 2016 Olympic Games, apparently has again been lost to criminal gangs.

Dozens of drug traffickers opened fire Tuesday on soldiers who were patrolling the favela in an attempt to regain control of the slum, officials stated.

Hundreds of soldiers were sent into the community of around 100,000 people to prevent a gang from a neighboring shantytown to take over the community police units set up in several points across the favela.

The community reports a 15-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet and at least 16 people were reported wounded during the heavy shooting which broke out Tuesday evening.

Local media also reported that over 50 drug heavily armed traffickers from a close by favela raided police units and shot at street lamps, leaving many streets in the dark. This Thursday, police disarmed five homemade bombs placed on the community entrances. No new clashes were reported.

The Alemão Complex, one of Brazil’s largest slums, is the second of many shantytown that were retaken by Rio police following weeks of widespread violence caused by gangs who had gone on the rampage, setting fire to around 100 cars and buses in the city.

Occupying the Alemão shantytown was the biggest challenge yet for security forces that have been engaged in pushing drug gangs out of slums and installing permanent community police to pacify the crime-ridden favelas.

Brazilian authorities are struggling to pacify Rio before it hosts the finals of the 2014 World Cup and the Olympic Games of 2016.

Mercopress

Tags:

You May Also Like

Minister Wagner and Bishop Cappio hug after negotiations

Brazilian Bishop’s Hunger Strike Gives Church a Black Eye

After 11 days of fasting in protest for the planned transposition by the government ...

Chinese currency

Here Is Why Brazil Should Adopt the New Asian Currency

Here we are at a very exciting time – a turning point in world ...

Want Democracy? Fight Misery, Brazil Tells the U.S

When the U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, brought to the OAS meeting that ...

Brazil’s Embraer Introduces New Jet to Asia

Brazil’s Embraer announced December 3 that startup airline Hong Kong Express Airways Ltd  will ...

China to Add 5 More Brazilian Embraer Jets to a Fleet of 18

The new board of directors of China Eastern Airlines Wuhan Ltd has approved the ...

New Zealand and Brazil Discover Each Other for Work and Pleasure

"Brazil with its 190 million people and huge land area and resources offers enormous ...

Brazil’s Lula Signs Public-Private Partnership Law

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva authorized the law creating Public-Private Partnerships (PPP’s). ...

Brazil’s Lula and Argentina’s Kirchner Talk About Nukes, Space and War

"It is a legitimate concern." That is the way ambassador José Eduardo Martins FelÀ­cio, ...

Brazilian Judges Accused of Promoting Violence and Impunity

The Brazilian Farm Worker Union (Contag) and an international union (Uita) are launching a ...

70,000 Policemen and Firefighters Go on Strike in Rio, One Week Before Carnaval

In Rio, the military police together with the civilian police and firefighters, a total ...