Violence continues in slums of Rio de Janeiro

Oct 27, 2009, 14:15 GMT

   Rio de Janeiro - Violence continued in the slums of Rio de Janeiro with the shooting death of a mother and injury of her baby, amid charges Monday of excessive use of force by police.

Late Sunday a 24-year-old woman was injured in the Kelsons slum as she returned home with her husband, two children and two other relatives. The woman died later in hospital.

Since October 17 - when police clashed with drug gangs in the favela (slum) Morro dos Macacos, in northern Rio - at least 47 people have died in several slums in the city that is set to host the 2016 Olympics.

The 11-month-old daughter of the dead woman was hospitalized in serious condition with a gunshot to the arm, the Rio de Janeiro Health Ministry said Monday.

   Police said the two were shot by criminals in the favela who opened fire on a police vehicle that was patrolling the neighbourhood.

Relatives of the victims, however, rejected that account and said police arrived in the slum shooting at random.

'There was no one on the street, the light was good. There were no criminals and there was no way for police not to notice that the group that was walking along the street was a family, even including children,' the dead woman's husband complained, in comments to Brazilian radio station CBN.

   The police chief in charge, Felipe Ettore, said all weapons used in the favela late Sunday had been confiscated and were to be compared with the bullet that hit the woman and her child.

Deaths over the past week or so include three police officers whose helicopter was brought down by alleged drug traffickers and scores of alleged criminals. At least five of the dead were people believed to be civilians with no connections to the drug trade.

An international group Global Justice Monday charged that the reaction of Rio de Janeiro's police to the wave of drug violence in the city's slums was 'vindictive.'

The activists charged that the authorities are 'causing panic (and) the closing of schools, daycare centres, health centres and shops.'

The favela Morro dos Macacos - at the centre of recent violence - is about 2 kilometres from Maracana Stadium, which is set to host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Games.

Meanwhile, Brazilian police late Monday reported a raid in Parana state on the border to Argentina and Paraguay that netted 279 arrests of suspected members of a drug-trafficking gang. Authorities seized 1.3 tons of marijuana, 3.5 kilograms of cocaine, 3.7 kilograms of crack cocaine and more than 50 weapons, plus cars and cash.