‘Welcome to hell’: Violence rocks Rio a month before Olympics

Welcome to Rio de Janeiro

RIO DE JANEIRO — A month before Rio de Janeiro hosts South America’s first Olympic Games, two cellphone videos have brought home the grim reality of rising violence in the city's teeming favelas — the poor communities that are home to almost a quarter of its population.

In one clip, small children cower in fear in a cable-car gondola while a gun battle rages below — at 4 o'clock on a Monday afternoon. The clip hit the Internet on the same day that Mayor Eduardo Paes told CNN that the state government is doing a “terrible” job with security. By Monday night, the video was on the front page of Brazil’s biggest news site, the Globo network’s G1.

That morning, police and firefighters organized a protest at Rio’s international airport over violence and unpaid salaries. “Welcome to hell,” a banner read. “Police and firefighters don’t get paid, whoever comes to Rio de Janeiro will not be safe.” It was their second demonstration at the airport, which will receive Olympic participants and visitors.

The second video, released Friday, shows a baying crowd following police officers who are hurriedly carrying a 16-year-old boy they had just shot and bundling his body into the back seat of their car in the Borel favela. He died en route to a hospital.

The violence is deepening anguish and anger among residents, and it comes at a time when Rio’s state government is broke and has slashed police budgets by a third.

It was a calm Monday afternoon when a young mother set out with her 3-year-old daughter and 2-month-old son, along with two friends and one of their sisters, just 10, for a spin around the Complexo do Alemao favela, not far from Rio’s international airport. But when they were leaving the Palmeiras station, one of six served by a cable-car network, a gun battle broke out below them between police and a drug gang.

“It was the most horrible thing. It was desperation. The children were crying, and we were trying to protect them. There is a big risk of a bullet hitting,” the woman said. She spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals — from the gang or police.

 @gidabudays