Around 800 Brazilian military and state police officers, in a strike that has lasted nearly a week, have refused to leave a legislature building in the city of Salvador, according to media reports.
The officers are demanding a pay raise and said they will not leave the legislature building unless their demands are met, but the Bahia state government said they cannot afford to give it to them. Overall, around 30,000 police have gone on strike throughout Bahia.
On Tuesday, Bahia government representatives met with police strikers in an attempt to broker a deal to end the strike, reported the Globo television station.
With the police officers on strike, the murder rate in Salvador, the third-largest city in Brazil, has nearly doubled. The O Dia newspaper reported that since Wednesday, the first day of the strike, 93 murders have been recorded, and there has been an overall economic loss of $115 million.
There is a pending security strike that may affect the police force in Rio de Janeiro next week, right before the city celebrates Carnival. According to security analyst firm Stratfor, military and state police “hope to force compromises by exploiting government concerns about the country’s international image ahead of the World Cup and the Olympics.”
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