Mutilated body parts washed up on Rio de Janeiro’s famed Copacabana Beach on Wednesday, just meters away from where the Olympic beach-volleyball competitions will be held in August.
Police told media that a severed foot and other parts of the body were found. Their provenance is unclear, but the Independent reports that the discovery came after a period of lethal gun battles in Rio’s slums as authorities attempted to recapture the notorious drug trafficker Nicolas Labre Pereira. Pereira had earlier been freed in an audacious and bloody breakout from a hospital where he was a patient that led to the death of a patient and injuries to several nurses. The hospital that will be used to treat athletes and tourists in August.
The gruesome discovery on Copacabana Beach is only the latest in a long list of scandals that has beset the Rio Olympics in the months leading up to them.
The city is home to both widespread crime and an indigent police force, which recently protested at the local airport, informing visitors that they were not safe.
On Tuesday, Jason Day, the world’s No. 1 golf player, announced he would not compete in the games out of fear of the Zika virus. Brazil has been an epicenter of the virus, which has been linked to birth defects; some experts have ventured that the virus necessitates the cancellation of the Olympics.
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