Eight die in Brazil shootout
A shootout between warring drug gangs and Rio de Janeiro police left eight shantytown residents dead and one injured, officials said today.
Shooting erupted when a gang from the Santa Lucia shantytown on Rio’s poor north side tried to invade the nearby Imbarie slum late on Sunday night, an official of the Rio de Janeiro state security secretariat said on customary condition of anonymity.
Responding to a call from frightened residents, police arrived at Imbarie around midnight but were pinned down in the crossfire until nearly 6 a.m., it said.
Eight residents were killed and one man was shot in the leg, officials said. The victims had not been identified, and it was not immediately clear whether they were shot by the drug gangs or the police.
Following the shootout, police seized two shotguns, five pistols, a hand grenade and 288 bags of marijuana.
Rio is one of the world’s most violent cities, with an annual rate of nearly 50 homicides per 100,000 people. Most of the violence is confined to the city’s shantytowns and poor outskirts.
