Armed clashes between police and drug traffickers prevent thousands of people from leaving their homes in Rio de Janeiro

Thousands of residents of the favelas of the so-called Complexo da Penha, north of the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, have been unable to leave their homes to go to work or for any other errands since late Wednesday morning due to violent clashes. which take place over the course of a few hours between elite police forces and criminals linked to the Comando Vermelho faction. As of 9:30 a.m. local time this Wednesday and 12:30 p.m. in Lisbon, arrests, injuries and deaths had not yet been made public, but on social media residents posted videos of intense and frightening gunfire in many areas of the vast area. A complex of poor communities, and everyone defended themselves as best they could, because even inside fragile houses one cannot be truly safe.

As soon as they noticed the approach of agents of the feared BOPE Special Police Operations Battalion, the criminals reinforced the barricades erected at the entrances to the favelas and set them on fire to impede the police’s advance. To try to overcome these barriers, agents used armored vehicles, but in some places even these special vehicles were unable to get through the barricades, and their occupants were forced to go down and remove the obstacle with their own hands under heavy fire from the criminals. weapons, while colleagues continuously fired at the population in an attempt to protect them.

Residents revealed online that traffickers even used high-powered weapons with tracer bullets and anti-aircraft machine guns, weapons commonly used by armies in conventional wars. Explosions were heard from late morning throughout the Pena complex, as well as in some communities in the west of the city.

According to the police, the giant operation being carried out this Wednesday aims to detect and arrest drug traffickers linked to the Comando Vermelho, the largest and oldest criminal group in Rio de Janeiro, which is preparing a major armed attack to take over the favelas in Rio de Janeiro. parts of the city currently controlled by militias, such as the Gardenia Azul, Musema, Rio das Pedras and Morro do Banco favelas. The arrest of seven heavily armed drug traffickers on the night of Tuesday 30th as they left Vila Cruzeiro in Complexo da Penha to enter a disputed area in the western zone alerted the police to the imminence of a mass attack and the decision was made. to begin today’s operation.