Shootings, stabbings, robberies and lynch mobs a daily threat
A gunpoint attack on Olympic sailors should be a wake-up call about the dangers of life in Rio de Janeiro, reports Laura McQuillan.
Another day in Rio de Janeiro, another gunpoint robbery: this time, Olympic sailors from Spain are the victims.
The attack last week was shocking, but not surprising: shootings, stabbings, robberies and lynch mobs are an everyday occurrence in the Olympic city.
Earlier this month, Brazilian football legend Rivaldo urged tourists not to come to Rio for the Games in August. ‘‘You are putting your life at risk here,’’ he said.
There’s little hyperbole behind it. Crime can happen anywhere in Rio, and at any time: the sailing trio were heading out to breakfast in Santa Teresa, an affluent neighbourhood popular with tourists, when a group of street kids pulled guns on them. Eighteen months ago a pair of female British sailors were robbed at knifepoint near Copacabana Beach.
It’s at the beach where tourists need to be particularly safetyconscious: sitting on a towel instead of a sarong, speaking English or just looking like a gringo make you an easy target, as my now-iPhone-and-wallet-less partner can attest.
Across the city, you can run a red light between 10pm and 5am – a legal exception aimed at stopping carjackings at intersections.
If you’ve seen City of God, you might rightly be concerned for your safety while visiting Rio – even though it’s changed enormously since the notorious 1990s.
A project since 2008 to pacify the city’s favelas, and bring peace to the neighbouring wealthy suburbs means a tourist is pretty unlikely to witness the shootouts between drug lords and cops that favela residents regularly endure – with children and teens too often caught in the deadly crossfire.
Rio’s police themselves have a reputation for being, at best, workshy and, at worst, brutal and corrupt. There’s potential for a hardline crackdown on antigovernment protesters during the Games.
But it’s not just violent crime that’s rife: a journalist recently blew the lid on extraordinary corruption at Rio de Janeiro’s international airport – where athletes and tourists will land when they come to the Games.
Almost everyone was involved in some kind of racket, from the security staff helping to enable cocaine imports, to the yellow fever vaccination clinic demanding payments for free injections.
There’s even an expression for it: jeitinho Brasileiro (literally ‘‘the Brazilian way’’), a catch-all phrase that can mean bending the rules or running a rort – unsurprising, given the snowballing corruption scandal that’s picking off Brazilian politicians, billionaires and corporations.
I’ve been lucky. Although my credit card has been skimmed twice (sorry Kiwibank), friends have been mugged, kidnapped, threatened at gunpoint, and even seen a severed human head – left on a bridge as a warning from drug dealers.
‘‘I’m sorry my city’s like this,’’ comes the apology from locals when the topic of crime arises within earshot of a foreigner.
Spain’s sailing federation now says Rio’s lack of security is ‘‘one of the points of greatest concern to the team’’ – the others are likely Zika, and the heavily polluted harbour that could give sailors gastro or skin infections. During the Games, sportspeople staying in the safety of the far-off athletes’ village will have almost no opportunity to run into trouble. But for tourists, the Spanish robbery’s just a warm-up to the main event.