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Over 200 tourists were trapped on Rio’s Morro Dois Irmaos after a gunfight between police and a drug gang. Photo / Getty Images
More than 200 tourists were trapped today atop an iconic hill overlooking Rio de Janeiro in Brazil after a gunfight broke out between police and a drug gang in a nearby favela, authorities and a tour operator said.
Visitors were stranded for about two hours on Morro Dois Irmaos
– or Two Brothers Hill – while fighting raged on a hillside below them between police and members of Comando Vermelho, one of Brazil’s largest criminal groups.
The hilltop, which overlooks the Ipanema and Leblon beaches from its 533m height, is one of the city’s most famous viewpoints and attracts thousands of visitors each week.
“There were more than 200 people taking the tour this morning. Seventy per cent were foreign tourists,” Renan Monteiro, from the tour operator Favela Turismo, told AFP.
Monteiro lamented that news of such gun battles would hurt tourism.




