(Bloomberg) -- Shootings have risen 25 percent in five of Rio de Janeiro's six most populous municipalities since Brazil's federal government deployed troops to shore up the city's deteriorating security.
The five municipalities in Rio's metropolitan area, which include the city's downtown business district, are those with most reported shootings, according to Cecilia Oliveira, co-creator of Fogo Cruzado, an organization that compiles and verifies the data. Those municipalities are home to 9.3 million residents, or three-quarters of the region's population.
Brazil's President Michel Temer said results won't come overnight. “It will take six, seven, eight months, maybe a year,” he said at an event on May 4. “But it has started giving results, first with a sense of security in several favelas.”
Temer's comments came one day after a police operation in a favela that left four dead and closed a major highway, forcing motorists to shelter nearby. A March survey by pollster Datafolha showed 76 percent of Rio's population approves of the intervention, even as 71 percent said the level of violence remained the same.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Biller in Rio de Janeiro at dbiller1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Vivianne Rodrigues at vrodrigues3@bloomberg.net, Peter Millard, Walter Brandimarte
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