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RIO DE JANEIRO : Police gun battles with suspected drug traffickers and shootouts between rival gangs in Rio de Janeiro overnight to Tuesday left at least 21 people dead, police said.
Thirteen people were killed in a shootout believed to be between rival drug trafficking gangs in the Morro da Mineira slum in the north of the city, according to a police toll.
The gunfight also injured 12 people, a police spokesman told AFP, emphasising that the toll was not final.
About a dozen suspected drug runners, including five minors, were arrested.
The shootout began at daybreak on Tuesday when a gang swarmed over the shantytown in what appeared to be an attempt to grab the drug market there from a rival gang.
The violence escalated when police arrived and the shooting continued until late morning.
Police exchanged fire with the gang members who had clambered onto surrounding rooftops.
Panic spread throughout the neighbourhood and a number of passersby were wounded by stray bullets.
Police arrested about a dozen suspects and seized numerous weapons, including hand grenades and mortars.
The violence prompted police to close one of Rio's main tunnels to traffic and four funerals at a nearby cemetery were cancelled.
In a separate incident in the west of the city, six suspected drug traffickers were killed overnight Monday to Tuesday after facing off with police in the Rebu slum.
The six, aged 15 to 30, opened fire when the stolen car they were driving was pulled over, federal police said, adding that they had been taken to hospital where they had died.
Some 3,000 doses of cocaine were found in the vehicle, according to police.
The deadly shootouts came after Rio state governor Sergio Cabral asked President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the beginning of the month to send military troops to help curb the soaring crime in the city.
In Brazil, local police are usually expected to ensure the security of each individual state.
Lula promised to send in the troops, but drawn-out negotiations with the armed forces had postponed the move.
A website called Rio Body Count, which uses media reports to tally the number of dead and injured in violence in the city, said 710 people had died there since the beginning of February.
The city's security secretariat meanwhile put the number of dead since the beginning of the year at around a thousand.
- AFP/ms
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