The Ministry of Justice and Public Security will send a member of the National Force to Rondônia. Agents from the federal troops will arrive in the state in the coming days, with the mission of helping state public security bodies to contain the criminal attacks recorded in recent days, in the capital, Porto Velho, and in at least one other city, Mirante da Serra .
The use of the National Force for 90 days was authorized by minister Ricardo Lewandowski, at the request of the state government. The agents will act in activities and services essential to preserving public order and guaranteeing the safety of people and property. For strategic reasons, the ministry does not disclose the number of agents mobilized.
Orchestrated attacks on buses have alarmed the population of Porto Velho. The city woke up without public transport this Tuesday (14).
Fearing for the integrity of drivers, collectors and users, bus workers decided to collect the buses in the early hours of the morning. Shortly afterwards, the mayor of the capital of Rondônia, Léo Moraes, asked the state government to reinforce public security in the city in order to guarantee order and the functioning of public transport.
In the letter he sent to governor Marcos Rocha and the state secretary of Security, Defense and Citizenship, Felipe Bernardo Vital, the mayor attributes the “recent wave of attacks” to criminal factions. At least three buses were set on fire in Porto Velho, as well as a bus and a truck in Mirante da Serra, a municipality about 390 kilometers from the capital.
According to local authorities, the attacks and threats to workers are a reaction to Operation Alliance for Life, Safe Housing, the first phase of which was launched at the end of 2024. Concentrated in housing complexes which, according to the Military Police (PM), are dominated by criminal organizations, the operation has already resulted in the retaking of around 70 apartments invaded by bandits who expelled the residents, as well as the seizure of drugs and weapons.
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“The faction [criminosa] makes a profit not only from the sale of drugs, but also from robberies and the sale and rental of these properties”, states the commander of the 9th Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Ewerson Pontes, in a statement released by the PM.
On the night of last Sunday (12), a few days after the PM launched the first phase of the operation, criminals shot and killed Corporal Fábio Martins, from the Environmental Police Battalion. The following day, the corporation launched the second phase of Operation Aliança Pela Vida, Safe Housing, this time in the Orgulho do Madeira housing complex.
The PM itself acknowledged, in a statement, that it mobilized more than 200 police officers in an “energetic response from the State to the crime that killed Corporal Fábio Martins”.
