Rio de Janeiro--Fresh violence in Rio's slums has led to growing doubts over the effectiveness of Brazil's seven-year-old strategy of "pacifying" districts in thrall to gangs and drug traffickers.
After the country won the right to stage last year's World Cup and next year's Rio Olympics, city authorities began to beef up police numbers in the "favelas" -- as its slums are known.
But after the World Cup and as the Olympics draw nearer, outbreaks of violent unrest are forcing a rethink of a strategy which experts say is not sufficiently well thought out for the long term.
"We are going to step up, in bolstering police numbers," Rio state governor Luiz Fernando Pezao said Sunday in announcing the "reoccupation" of the Alemao group of Rio favelas.
But last week's shooting dead by a policeman of a 10-year-old boy in Alemao, home to some 70,000 people in the north of the city, has boosted calls for a different strategy.
Authorities are determined to to crack down on crime ahead of the Olympics, which start on August 5 next year
To date, they have deployed 38 police units in 264 impoverished, crime-hit neighborhoods housing more than a million people to "pacify" them.
But the shooting of Eduardo de Jesus Ferreira, killed outside his house, has whipped up a storm of protest against the police.
Fatal shootings are more rare than before the police moved in -- yet the past three months have seen an upsurge of violence.
Three people were killed and 22 wounded by stray bullets in January as gang warfare surged in Alemao and other large favelas, such as Mare near Rio's international airport.
AFP
