Brazil sends 200 troops to control lethal violence sparked by police strike
Brazil’s president has ordered 200 troops to the south-eastern state of Espírito Santo, where a police strike in recent days sparked a wave of violence including what is already believed to be dozens of murders.
The crime surge in Espírito Santo, a small coastal state just north of Rio de Janeiro, began over the weekend, after police on Friday stopped work because of the pay dispute. Since then, local media and citizens with cellphone videos have broadcast scenes of chaos - particularly in state capital Vitoria and its suburbs, home to about two million people.
Local media reported that as many as 50 people have died during the period, an unusually high death toll for the state in such a short period. But a state security spokesman said the government has not been able to make an official tally. Schools in the area closed, as did public health clinics and other local offices.
The law enforcement stoppage in a state struggling with a budget shortfall is the latest example of how depleted public finances, amid Brazil’s worst recession on record, are crippling even basic health services, education and security in some states. President Michel Temer, who also authorized the use of federal troops to quell uprisings in prisons last month that led to around 140 deaths in various states, dispatched the country’s defense minister to Espírito Santo on Monday.
Several other Brazilian states are grappling with a financial crisis. In Rio de Janeiro, the state government has been struggling to pay expenses including salaries of police, teachers and doctors and basic supplies for schools and hospitals.
At: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/06/brazil-police-strike-crimewave-troops-espirito-santo
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