Brazil sends Thousands of reinforcements to stem violence in Rio de Janeiro

Brazilian marines are seen in front of armored personnel carriers (APC) at the Museum of Tomorrow area in the portuary zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 29, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Thousands of reinforcements have been deployed to the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro in an attempt to curb a surge in criminal violence in the coastal city.

President Michel Temer ordered on Friday that 8,500 army troops and 1,500 police officers, members of the national guard, and other security personnel be sent to Rio to fight crime.

Ninety one police officers have been killed in acts of criminal violence in Rio since the start of the year.

Last Sunday, hundreds of relatives of police officers gathered at the seafront in Copacabana to protest against the deaths and demand more support. They said Rio police are not equipped well enough to fight crime.

In the first half of the year, more than 2,700 people were murdered in Rio, showing a 10.2% rise in comparison to the same period last year, according to official figures.

Brazil’s Defense Minister Raul Jungmann said on Friday that the city was being hit by a “crime cancer,” which was spreading.

“We have 800 favelas (shanty towns) that are all... in a state of emergency,” he said.

Justice Minister Torquato Jardim has claimed an increasing number of firearms belonging to Colombian FARC guerilla fighters have started to emerge in the Brazilian city. Those weapons are presumably being handed in to the United Nations as part of a peace pact with the Colombian government.

A teenage actor in a crime movie becomes a criminal

Meanwhile, police say one of the teenage actors in the Brazilian crime movie City of God is a suspect in a recent killing of an officer in one of Rio’s favelas.

City of God, which was released in 2002, exposed the bitter reality of crime, violence, and poverty in a Rio favela.

Ivan da Silva Martins, now 34, played a small part as a gang member in the film, and is now believed to be involved in real crime.

Ivan da Silva Martins (4th-Left, in black shorts), aka Ivan the Terrible, is seen in this photo from a scene in the movie City of God. (File)

He is now known as Ivan the Terrible and is thought to control drug trafficking in the Vidigal favela.

Fernando Meirelles, the City of God director, said he had gradually lost contact with the boys in the film, but told O Globo newspaper that he had been “saddened by the news” about da Silva Martins.