Rio de Janeiro - More than 22 000 police will hit the streets of Rio in the run-up to Sunday's nationwide elections after a spike in urban violence left five people dead in three days.
Two of the dead were suspected drug traffickers shot and killed in two slum districts, underlining the huge challenge the authorities face in attempting to quell the street violence that continues to blight the 2016 Olympics host city.
Before that, police are focusing on Sunday's potentially volatile presidential and general elections.
“We will double the number of officers on the streets,” Rio's state secretary for security, Jose Mariano Beltrame, was quoted as saying by local media.
That will mean more than 22 000 security personnel on the streets of Rio on Saturday and Sunday to ensure the elections go off incident-free.
Beltrame said he believed criminals in the city's favelas will seek to intensify unrest ahead of the polls.
“In 2010 we saw dozens of buses set ablaze in the city. The police are already working on the assumption that this kind of attack will reoccur,” said Beltrame. - Sapa-AFP