More than 100 dead in Brazil as police strike triggers anarchy

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A civil police officer stands guard over a looter, shot in the leg, at an electronic store in Vitoria, Espirito Santo state, in Brazil on Monday. Photo: AP

Published: 2:11pm, 10 Feb 2017Updated: 10:40pm, 10 Feb 2017

More than 100 people have been reported killed in violence and looting during a six-day strike by police in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, with schools and businesses closed and public transportation frozen.

The army mobilised airborne troops and armoured vehicles on Thursday to reinforce the roughly 1,200 soldiers and federal police trying to contain the chaos in the coastal state north of Rio de Janeiro.

Most of the violence was centred in the state capital Vitoria, a wealthy port city ringed by golden beaches and filled with mining and petroleum companies.

Police in Espirito Santo are demanding a pay rise amid an economic downturn that has hammered public finances in Brazil, with many states struggling to ensure even basic health, education and security services.

Soldiers patrolled abandoned streets in downtown Vitoria, stopping and frisking the occasional pedestrian against shuttered store fronts.

Kailua, centre, son of slain civil police officer Mario Marcelo de Albuquerque Espirito, is comforted during his father's funeral on Wednesday, alongside his mother Patricia Albuquerque, right, in Serra in Brazil’s Espirito Santo state. Espirito was shot to death when he tried to stop a robbery. Photo: AP

State officials said they needed hundreds more federal troops and members of an elite federal police force to help establish order and make up for the absence of some 1,800 state police who normally patrol Vitoria’s metropolitan area.

“The Army’s involvement in Espirito Santo is temporary. It is here to make government negotiations possible and bring peace to the population. We are not going to replace the police,” General Eduardo Villas Boas said on Twitter.