REFILE-Police kill five in Rio as gang attacks continue
Source: Reuters
(Refiling to add dropped letter in "unleashed" in second paragraph) RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Brazilian police shot dead five suspected gang members in a Rio de Janeiro slum on Friday night and exchanged fire with drug traffickers who tried to attack a police station in the early hours on Saturday. The shootouts followed a wave of bloodshed unleashed by drug gangs on Thursday, when 18 people died, including seven passengers burned alive on a bus torched by assailants. An eighth person died from severe burns on Saturday. On Friday night, for a second consecutive night hundreds of people were stranded at bus stops or walked home for miles as only a handful of city buses circulated. Police have reinforced patrols, occupied a dozen slums and mounted a heavy security program to safeguard the city's New Year's eve beach party, when over 2 million people will cram the Copacabana beach, including over 500,000 tourists. In one raid, police found bottles with gasoline and homemade bombs which would have been used in new attacks. Nevertheless, another bus was set ablaze on Friday night in the suburbs. About a dozen buses have been torched so far. A police spokesman said two assault rifles, a grenade and pistols were found on the five suspected drug traffickers killed in a standoff with police on Friday night. In other parts of Rio, gangsters sprayed with bullets a police station on the outskirts and shot up the facade of a shopping mall. Nobody was killed. On Thursday, gangsters also shot up police posts, killing two officers and two bystanders. Police killed seven suspects. State authorities were divided about what had triggered the violence, with some blaming jailed drug kingpins trying to prevent changes in penitentiary administration set to occur after a new state government takes office on Jan. 1. Others cited tensions between drug gangs and vigilante groups set up by police officers in some slums. International human rights group Amnesty International condemned the attacks in statement, but said reports of the rise of the vigilante groups, known as militias, reinforced "the message that the failure of effective efforts by the state and federal authorities to address the public security crisis has only added fuel to the growing violence." It said the increasing dependence on repressive and abusive policing has stoked violence in Rio. The vigilante groups have been taking control of some shantytowns from drug traffickers and demanding protection fees from slum dwellers, crime experts say.
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