The city of Natal and other municipalities in the state of Rio Grande do Norte in northeastern Brazil, recorded, for the third consecutive day, new coordinated attacks by a criminal faction, official sources said on Thursday.
“We had new attacks during the last morning”, sources from the Public Safety Secretariat of Rio Grande do Norte told EFE.
The altercations of the last few hours took place despite the presence of troops from the National Force, an elite police force, sent the day before by the Ministry of Justice.
From early Tuesday morning, shots and fires were reported against vehicles, shops, banks and offices of public organizations in more than twenty cities of Rio Grande do Norte.
The attacks
Since then the number of attacks has decreased, but the governor of Rio Grande do Norte, Fátima Bezerra, acknowledged to reporters the day before that normality has not yet returned.
Between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, groups of suspects, apparently linked to the “Sindicato del Crimen” gang, they set fire to vehicles in Natal, the regional capital, as well as other cities, such as Joao Câmara and Sao Paulo do Potengi.
They also burned down a supermarket in São Gonçalo do Amarante, according to the G1 portal, from the Globo group.
This forced suspend municipal transport servicesNatal, which has about 900,000 inhabitants, and in other municipalities in the metropolitan area.
According to the latest official balance sheet, since the crisis broke out, the Military Police arrested 57 suspects and seized 46 explosive devices15 firearms and 10 drums of petrol, as well as money, drugs and ammunition.
So far, two suspects have died in clashes with police. One of them was named as one of the organizers of the criminal offensive and was killed in Joao Pessoa, capital of the neighboring state of Paraíba.
He is also under investigation the murder of a merchant and its possible relationship to the wave of attacks.
suspects
Brazilian authorities suspect that the Crime Syndicate is behind the serious riots, a gang that dominates the drug trade in the region and operates from within prisons.
The crime syndicate was born about ten years ago as a dissident of the First Command of the Capitall (PCC), which is the largest criminal organization in Brazil and already has branches in other Latin American countries.
Preliminary investigations indicate that the chaos sown in recent days in Rio Grande do Norte is a response to the recent tightening of public policies to combat crime and the poor conditions of the regional prison system.
Human rights organizations denounce it the minimum conditions are not respected to which prisoners are entitled.
The government announced Wednesday the shipment to Rio Grande do Norte of a federal force of agents prisons to coordinate the “surveillance and custody of prisoners”.
However, “inside the units, the situation is under control. There is no revolt, no escape attempt, nothing out of the ordinary,” the Secretariat of the State Penitentiary Administration told AFP.
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.