Rio police seal off slum after police shot by gangs

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian security forces sealed off a slum near Rio de Janeiro's international airport on Thursday after three military police were wounded when suspected drug traffickers opened fire on their car, amid heightened security surrounding the Olympics. The three military police agents, drafted from outside Rio to help during the Games, were using a cellphone app to navigate and took a wrong turn into the Complexo de Mare slum and traffickers opened fire on their vehicle. One police agent remained in a serious condition in hospital, sources said. Military police entered the Vila do Joao neighbourhood of the slum on Thursday to attempt to apprehend three suspects. Federal traffic police stepped up their patrols on the roads around Vila do Joao, with the aim of preventing them from fleeing. Complexo de Mare, in the north of Rio, groups some 15 neighbourhoods and is home to about 150,000 people. It lies off a highway used by visitors travelling between the airport and the Olympic Park. The first games to be held in South America have been dogged by security concerns since they opened on Aug. 5. In the past week, three Swedish tourists were abducted when they visited a slum, Portugal's visiting education minister was robbed at knife point, a Games bus was attacked with stones and two bullets have been found inside the equestrian centre. A spokesman for Rio 2016 said a firefight occurred on Wednesday when police went into a slum near the equestrian centre to detain a man suspected of firing a shot that landed in the media centre at the equestrian site on Saturday. Authorities have said he was firing at a police blimp. A second bullet found on Wednesday in the equestrian centre near the stables was likely the result of that firefight, the spokesman said. (Reporting by Rodrigo Viga and Daniel Flynn, editing by Ed Osmond)