Brazil army moves to suppress firefights in Rio slum
RIO DE JANEIRO: The Brazilian army sent reinforcements into a Rio slum to restore order Wednesday after a night of gunbattles revived fears of gang violence in the host city of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.
Armored vehicles and military police vehicles swarmed into the Complexo do Alemao, a network of hillside favelas in northern Rio that had been declared "pacified" but erupted in violence Tuesday night, local media said.
Video images of the shootout showed tracer rounds being fired from the hillsides amid a deafening roar of gunfire.
A young girl was killed by a stray bullet, according to unconfirmed media reports.
The military police said it had sent a 50-man force into the favelas on the Baiana and Adeus hills, to gain control of the high ground in an area of the complex where no federal troops had been deployed.
About 100 marine riflemen also have been added to the military force that has been deployed in the neighborhood since November, the army said in statement cited by the newspaper O Globo.
"It's the first time there has been a shootout since the occupation by the Pacification Force, and the population is worried," Rene Silva, a 17-year old resident who wrote about the fighting on Twitter, told the website G1.
"The residents support the occupation, but want changes in the way the military approaches the people," he said.
The Rio Secretariat for Security said the shootout erupted following the closure of an illegal gas station owned by the brother of a known drug trafficker, and news that the army would remain in the area until 2012.
On Sunday, a clash broke out between 80 soldiers and about 20 Alemao inhabitants, which left 12 wounded, including two soldiers.
Some 2,200 police occupied the Complexo do Alemao in November in a massive operation after a wave of attacks by drug traffickers on police stations and vehicles that left 37 people dead.
Since 2008, authorities in Rio, which has one of the highest murder rates in the country, have been in a race to restore security in the city before the World Cup.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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