Host city of 2016 Olympics shaken by violence as warlords battle for control of the cocaine trade

Host city of 2016 Olympics shaken by violence as warlords battle for control of the cocaine trade
A police helicopter was shot down by the gangs when it tried to intervene in a battle in Rio.

Two weeks after Rio de Janeiro celebrated winning the 2016 Olympic Games, the Brazilian city was tonight bracing itself for a further night of violence after an intense gun battle erupted in one of the city's favelas and a police helicopter was shot down, killing two officers.

The violence, intense even by Rio's standards, began in the Morro dos Macacos, a hillside area in northern Rio. The shanty town, controlled by the Amigos dos Amigos (Friends of Friends) drug faction, one of three heavily-armed cocaine gangs that control many of Rio's 1,000-odd slums, was reportedly invaded in the early hours of Saturday morning by members of a rival gang, the Red Command. Police say traffickers from the Red Command were attempting to seize control of the local cocaine trade.

Deafening volleys of automatic gunfire were captured on amateur video, filmed from apartment blocks surrounding the slum. One local newspaper declared it a "War in Rio" on its website.

"We were terrified," Cristina Soares, a 17-year-old resident, told the Rio tabloid newspaper Extra as she fled the area yesterday. "The children were so scared they wanted to leave the house in the middle of all the shooting. Later on things are going to get even worse."

Mario Vilson, another resident of the Morro dos Macacos, told the news website Terra that he had been woken up by the sound of shooting. "This war has been going on for 20 years and will never end," he said. "It's very sad. I just don't know when we will have peace."

Hundreds of police officers descended on the area following the invasion. By Saturday night the death toll, including the two dead police officers, stood at 12 according to Rio's security secretary José Mariano Beltrame. Five other officers had been shot and two slum residents injured, police said.

Favela residents were gathering their belongings and fleeing their homes while at least 10 buses were set on fire across town, causing close to £1m in damage according to one company.