BRASILIA: Fourteen people including six hostages were killed early on Friday in a shootout between police and bank robbers attempting to blow up ATMs at two banks in a small town in northeastern Brazil, authorities said.
Most of the deaths occurred when police opened fire on the robbers at the bank branches on the main street in Milagres in the interior of Ceará state, a statement by the governor’s office said.
Five of the alleged gang members died in the night-time shootout shortly after 2 a.m local time, two died in hospital of bullet wounds and an eighth was gunned down in a police pursuit, it said.
Six people who had been taken hostage on a local highway that the gang blocked with a trailer truck also died in the shootout, the statement said. It said three suspects have been arrested by police.
Local media reported that five of the dead hostages were from the same family, including two children aged 14 and 13.
The attempted robbery was interrupted by a police unit that had been tracking a gang responsible for similar bank robberies in the area.
Bank robbery shootout in Brazil kills 14
Bank robbery shootout in Brazil kills 14
- A heavily armed group arrived in the town in the early hours and went to the center of town, where they tried to commit the crime
Zelensky says Russia using Belarus territory to circumvent Ukrainian defenses
- While President Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Russia was using ordinary apartment blocks on the territory of its ally Belarus to attack Ukrainian targets and circumvent Kyiv’s defenses.
The Kremlin used Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Belarus remains a steadfast ally, though longstanding President Alexander Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the conflict.
“We note that the Russians are trying to bypass our defensive interceptor positions through the territory of neighboring Belarus. This is risky for Belarus,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram after a military staff meeting.
“It is unfortunate that Belarus is surrendering its sovereignty in favor of Russia’s aggressive ambitions.”
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence had observed that Belarus was deploying equipment to carry out its attacks “in Belarusian settlements near the border, including on residential buildings.
“Antennae and other equipment are located on the roofs of ordinary five-story apartment buildings, which help guide ‘Shaheds’ (Russian drones) to targets in our western regions. This is an absolute disregard for human lives, and it is important that Minsk stops playing with this.”
The Russian and Belarusian defense ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Zelensky said the staff meeting also discussed ways of financing interceptor drones, which officials in Kyiv see as the best economically viable means of tackling Russian drone attacks, which have grown in intensity in recent months.
The president said the Ukrainian military’s general staff had been charged with working out changes to strategy in fending off air attacks “to defend infrastructure and frontline positions.”
Lukashenko this month said Russia’s Oreshnik ballistic missile system, described by Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin as impossible to intercept, had been deployed to Belarus and entered active combat duty.
An assessment by two US researchers, reported by Reuters on Friday, said Moscow was likely stationing the nuclear-capable hypersonic Oreshnik at a former air base in eastern Belarus, a development that could bolster Russia’s ability to deliver missiles across Europe.
