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Riots erupted in a notorious Rio de Janeiro slum yesterday - just weeks before the start of the World Cup.

The horrific violence followed the death of a 26-year-old dancer whose friends claimed had been murdered by the police.

The protests were so widespread police sealed off the nearby tourist area of Copacabana where many England fans will use as their base for the tournament,

Intense exchanges of gunfire were heard when members of an elite police squad moved into the Pavao-Pavaozinho slum.

One 27-year-old man was killed after being shot in the head.

Locals erected barricades, started fires and hurled home-made explosives and bottles in the city’s main tourist zone.

The body of Douglas Rafael da Silva Pereira, a dancer on a famous TV show, was discovered in the slum.

He had been badly beaten and his body covered in bootprints.

His pal Johanas Mesquita, 23, said: “The police beat my friend to death, just like they’ve tortured and killed in other communities.

“This effort to pacify the favelas is a failure, the police violence is only replacing what the drug gangs carried out before.”.

Following the discovery of the body, angry young men began lighting fires throughout the slum and tossing home-made explosives, bottles and other objects down on to Copacabana’s main streets.

Elite police units entered the slum and at least three prolonged exchanges of gunfire were heard.

It was the latest violence to hit one of Rio’s so-called “pacified” slums – poverty-stricken areas that were controlled by drug gangs for decades.

Police began an ambitious security programme in 2008 to drive the gangs from those slums and for the first time set up permanent posts.

It is part of Rio’s overall security push ahead of the World Cup that begins this June and the Olympics the city will host.

So far, 37 such “police pacification units” have been created, covering an area with a population of 1.5 million people.

But there have been repeated complaints of heavy-handed police tactics that have ended in deaths, which is what set off the latest clashes, residents said.

In recent months, drug gangs have brazenly attacked police outposts, in what authorities themselves say is an effort to block the expansion of the pacification programme and to win back lucrative drug-selling territory.

Since November, gunfights have regularly broken out in the slum where the violence took place.