The Brazilian state of Ceara (northeast), where military police mutinied to get better wages, recorded 147 murders in five days, five times more than the daily average, authorities said on Monday.
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These killings took place between Wednesday and Sunday, in the middle of Carnival in Brazil. They are five times more numerous than the average of six murders per day, recorded in this state since the beginning of the year, according to the secretariat for security of Ceara.
Military police (PM), a law enforcement agency that reports to the authorities of each state, are prohibited from striking. But after two months of unsuccessful wage negotiations, mutineer groups on Tuesday launched the occupation of barracks, attacked several patrols and went on strike. Police cars were stolen and facilities were destroyed.
As a result, the number of murders on the public highway has skyrocketed. On Wednesday, center-left senator Cid Gomes was wounded by gunshot after trying, at the controls of a backhoe, to break a picket line by mutinous police officers in Sobral, a town 230 km from Fortaleza, the capital of this city. State.
After being hospitalized, the former Minister of Education of the government of former president Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) is at home recovering.
Faced with this situation, President Jair Bolsonaro decided Friday to send 2,500 soldiers and staff of the National Guard to strengthen security in Ceara. During a visit to the state, the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Sergio Moro, said he hoped that "the situation will be resolved as soon as possible".
Local media reported that 200 military police were suspended for their participation in the mutiny and 37 were imprisoned for desertion.
With a population of around 8.8 million, the state of Ceara was paralyzed a year ago by more than 200 attacks by criminal factions, unhappy with the tightening of conditions of detention in the prisons of the 'State.