A man who injured two people and took 16 bus passengers hostage at Rio de Janeiro’s main station surrendered after three hours of kidnapping, the Police reported.
“The kidnapper surrendered to the military police, he is detained, all the hostages were released, they are safe“Military Police Colonel Marco Andrade told reporters outside the Novo Rio terminal in the city center.
Initially, the number of people detained was estimated at 17.
However, later “the number of hostages released was corrected, from 17 to 16“, said the Police on the social network X.
One of the two injured is in serious condition, authorities said.
Minutes after the announcement of the kidnapper’s surrender, images released by the Globo channel showed agents carrying an individual dressed in a colorful pink t-shirt, green shorts and short hair to a van.
The same images showed several passengers getting off the bus, including a young woman with a baby in her arms.
The passengers released “They were evaluated by our doctors in the ambulances to check if they had any type of injury, but they are all fine.“said Rio Fire Department spokesman Fabio Contreiras.
The Novo Rio terminal had been cordoned off and agents from the elite Special Operations Battalion unit negotiated for hours with the individual, whose identity has not been revealed.
The incident began around 3:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. GMT), when “a man shot two people and took other passengers hostage on a bus at the Rio Bus Station, in the Santo Cristo neighborhood,” the Police said.
“He started shooting”
According to the first investigations, the man was trying to “flee“from Rio”problems in your faction” criminal, the secretary of the Rio Military Police, Luiz Henrique Marinho, explained to Globo.
“At some point he felt threatened by someone, a person or a group, on the bus, and that’s when he fired the shots,” he added.
The governor of the state of Rio, Claudio Castro, praised the “exemplary” action of the Police in ending the kidnapping on the social network
In total, 16 people were detained, among them, a child and six elderly people, explained Colonel Andrade.
One of the injured, 34 years old, “received two perforations” in the thorax and abdomen and is hospitalized in “serious condition” in a public hospital, declared the Health Secretary of the Rio Mayor’s Office, Daniel Soranz.
The other injured person is in a lighter condition and was taken to another health unit, he explained.
Evacuated and closed
AFP journalists observed a heavy police deployment outside the station, which was evacuated and closed.
Television footage showed a blue bus stopped in the middle of an empty parking lot.
Hundreds of passengers crowded outside as negotiations were underway.
Maely Reis, a 25-year-old girl who was waiting to travel to Bahia, He regretted the little information they received at the terminal and described what happened as “bizarre.”
“Everyone goes through difficult things, but that’s why you’re going to hijack the bus, shoot people who have nothing to do with your life and disrupt the lives of thousands of people?” he told AFP.
Buses leave from the Novo Rio station to other regions of Brazil, and 38,000 people pass through it daily.
The hijacking of buses has precedents in Rio.
In 2019, an individual held bus passengers hostage for almost four hours on the bridge that connects Rio de Janeiro with the neighboring city of Niterói, before finally being shot down by police snipers. In August 2011, another kidnapping left three injured in the heart of the city.
The most serious case was in June 2000, when a hostage was murdered and the attacker died after being captured by the authorities. That event inspired a movie.
Source: https://www.noticiascaracol.com/mundo/un-nino-y-6-adultos-mayores-entre-los-16-secuestrados-en-rio-de-janeiro-todos-fueron-liberados-cb20
