In Brazil Police Move to Control Gang-Run Favelas

GlobeTracker: In Brazil’s largest slum Rochina, there is less violence than in other favelas, “where rival drug gangs fight gun battles for control, often using sophisticated weaponry that rivals the police’s arsenal”, writes The National.

With Brazil’s hosting the football World Cup in 2014 and Olympics in 2016, the police will be moving into some of the country’s largest favelas, in an attempt to bring order to the gang violence.

The residents of Rocinha hope the government will this time act on all its promises. Although life is better there than in many other favelas and it even has some banks and estate agents trading in the neighbourhood’s breeze-block buildings, there are vast piles of stinking waste on the streets that assail the senses. Meanwhile, many children do not attend school and are easily diverted into drug dealing. via The National

More reading: The Places We Call Home’: Four Monumental Slumg Typify ‘Home’ for More Than One Billion People.