Brazil police clash with evicted squatters in central Rio

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Police clashed with illegal squatters at an abandoned building in Rio de Janeiro Tuesday, April 14, using pepper spray and arresting several people as some of the 300 occupants refused to leave the property.

Police surrounded the building, where several children were staying, in one on Rio’s most affluent areas on Rui Barbosa Avenue, as they demanded that the squatters leave, an Agence France-Presse reporter said.  

The 20-story building, across from the famous Sugarloaf mountain in Brazil’s second largest city, is owned by former billionaire Eike Batista but has been unoccupied.  

Brazil’s Justice Ministry had ordered the squatters to leave the property on Thursday, April 9. 

Clashes erupted as police tried to evacuate the building.

Some officers used pepper spray and arrested two people in the clashes, while 11 people were injured, police and firefighters told Agence France-Presse.

One of the occupants told Agence France-Presse police used force and insisted the squatters had tried to leave without creating trouble. 

“We had agreed to leave peacefully, but as we were leaving the building, a group set fire to a mattress, then the police came and started beating us,” Bete Araujo, 58, told Agence France-Presse.

“The mayor offered a municipal shelter in Santa Cruz (west of Rio) where there are 130 spots, but we don’t want to go. It’s far from everything. We prefer to be on the street,” added Araujo, a tailor and a cook. 

Human rights activists, prosecutors and city hall officials had spent several hours negotiating with the squatters to broker a peaceful exit. 

“No one is here by choice. They are people with absolute social deprivation,” said Marcelo Chalreo, head of the Brazilian Bar Association’s Human Rights Commission. 

The building is currently leased to the Flamengo football club by owner Batista, who had originally planned to turn the property into a hotel for the 2016 Olympics. 

The one-time multi-billionaire and oil magnate’s empire crumbled in just a few months in 2013. – Rappler.com