In Brazil, Rio de Janeiro experienced a particularly violent Monday. At least 35 buses and a train were set on fire in working-class neighborhoods in the west of the city after the death of a man suspected of being a member of a militia during a law enforcement operation, police said. announced local authorities.
These “brutal” reprisals erupted after a police operation which, according to state governor Claudio Castro, killed the nephew and right-hand man of a local militia leader, dealing a “hard blow to one of the largest militias in the west” of Rio. This nephew, who calls himself “Faustao”, was according to him a “known war leader”.
The town hall declares a “state of vigilance”
The police said they had arrested 12 people suspected of “terrorist actions” and the town hall declared a “state of vigilance”, the third on a scale of five, alerting residents to problems with “high impact” on the population. .
The mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, described the militiamen as “idiots and criminals” who “burned buses paid for with public money to protest against a police operation”, in a message on the social network X.
A militia initially seen as an alternative to the police
According to the latest report from the city’s bus company union, Rio Onibus, 35 buses were engulfed in flames, “the largest number of buses set on fire in the history of Rio de Janeiro.” “Criminals set fire to the engine of a train,” said Supervia, the operator of Rio’s urban trains.
Made up mostly of former members of law enforcement, these militias initially appeared as an alternative to the police to fight drug trafficking. But organized like mafias, with sophisticated extortion systems, they control services such as gas distribution, the Internet, local transport and cable television. They are currently competing for territory in Rio with drug trafficking gangs.
Three weeks ago, three doctors were shot and killed in a bar facing a beach in an affluent neighborhood of Rio. Investigators believed that they had been killed “by mistake”, one of them having been confused by the criminals with a member of a militia.