Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Ukrainian navy receives two former U.S. coast guard patrol boats

KYIV (Reuters) – Two refitted former U.S. Coast Guard patrol boats intended to bolster the Ukrainian navy have arrived at the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa, the Ukrainian navy said on Tuesday.

“We appreciate the contribution of the United States to deter the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine,” naval commander Oleksiy Neyizhpapa was quoted as saying.

The two new boats are part of a package of assistance to Ukraine that has been worth over $2.5 billion since 2014, the year Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists seized a swathe of eastern Ukraine.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Alcohol and auto parts: Canada’s warehouses fill up as floods stop flow of goods

By Julie Gordon, Rod Nickel and Nichola Saminather

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s warehouses are filling up with everything from furniture to alcohol, after floods in British Columbia washed out critical rail and road lines, disrupting already strained supply chains.

A week after a phenomenon known as an atmospheric river brought a month’s worth of rain in two days to the Pacific coast province, road traffic between Vancouver’s port, Canada’s busiest, and the rest of the country remains largely suspended.

Canadian Pacific Railway is set to restart service on Tuesday, while Canadian National Railway plans to reopen to limited traffic on Wednesday.

Shippers, meanwhile, are seeking extra storage space and eyeing alternative routes to move key manufacturing components. The disruptions come ahead of the busy holiday shopping season, with the Retail Council of Canada estimating a “significant” hit to companies. Still, Christmas won’t be totally ruined.

“People will be able to get gifts for holiday season,” said Greg Wilson, director of B.C. government relations for the Retail Council of Canada, adding consumers may need to make compromises on their wish lists.

From forest fires to floods, natural disasters are exposing Canada’s supply chain vulnerabilities, piling pressure on retailers and manufacturers already grappling with global supply chain clogs.

In Vancouver, warehousing and trucking firm 18 Wheels Logistics has filled every inch of its existing storage space with alcohol, auto parts and other goods. It signed a lease for another 180,000 square feet, the equivalent of two city blocks, to deal with excess demand.

“It’s quite a bit of space to take on,” said Chief Executive Adrian Wen.

Wen’s firm is also re-routing trucks laden with perishable goods and high-demand auto parts across the border into Washington state on a more circuitous route to destinations in Alberta and further east in Ontario and Quebec.

He said the trip takes two extra days for a firm relying on 350 drivers.

The infrastructure and emergency cost of the flood alone has been pegged at more than C$1 billion ($787 million), according to local officials. That does not include the hit to farmers, retailers and other businesses.

Logistics firm Volume Freight said it has secured storage in Vancouver for trapped goods from tires to furniture and is arranging for trucks to haul product from the city to provinces further east, via the United States, a costly endeavor.

“Right now, everyone is sitting and waiting… Everyone’s just in limbo,” said Chief Operating Officer Danica Sabourin, adding even when rail lines reopen, delays will last weeks due to the backlog.

The Port of Vancouver, which moves about C$240 billion of goods a year, said anchorage demand is “high and nearing capacity across all vessel types.”

On the other side of the disaster, a driver for Lipsett Cartage was forced to leave his truck loaded down with 94,000 pounds of steel in Kamloops, a city in British Columbia that is north of some of the worst flooding.

The company flew the driver back to Regina, but was unable to make a single shipment to or from Vancouver last week, whereas it usually does 10.

“It’s a mess,” said office manager Zoe Lipsett. “We’re absolutely to the wall, having companies call us, asking ‘How are we going to do this?'”

For Toronto-based shopping bag seller Progress Luv2Pak, the floods are the latest hurdle cutting them off from two long-delayed containers stuck at the Vancouver port.

Even when the shipments are released, Progress will have to find an alternative route to get them east, President Ben Hertzman said.

“I’m pretty numb to it by this point. I wake up everyday kind of expecting there to be another piece of chaos in the supply chain,” he said.

($1 = 1.2700 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Julie Gordon in Ottawa and Nichola Saminather in Toronto; additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal; Writing by Julie Gordon; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Taliban release media guidelines, ban shows with female actors

KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban administration has released a set of restrictions on Afghan media, including banning television dramas that included female actors and ordering women news presenters to wear “Islamic hijab”.

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue set out nine rules this week, a Taliban administration spokesman said on Tuesday, largely centered on banning any media that contravened “Islamic or Afghan values”.

Some edicts were targeted specifically at women, a move likely to raise concerns among the international community.

“Those dramas…or programs in which women have acted, should not be aired,” the rules said, adding that female journalists on air should wear “Islamic hijab” without defining what that meant.

Though most women in Afghanistan wear headscarves in public, the Taliban’s statements that women should wear “Islamic hijab” have often in the past worried women’s rights activists who say the term is vague and could be interpreted conservatively.

The rules drew criticism from international rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW), which said media freedom was deteriorating in the country.

“The disappearance of any space for dissent and worsening restrictions for women in the media and arts is devastating,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at HRW, in a statement.

Though Taliban officials have sought to publicly assure women and the international community that women’s rights will be protected since they took over Afghanistan on Aug. 15, many advocates and women have remained skeptical.

During the Taliban’s previous rule, strict curbs were placed on women’s ability to leave the house, unless accompanied by a male relative, or to receive education.

(Reporting by Kabul bureau; additional reporting by Jibran Ahmed in Peshawar; writing by Charlotte Greenfield)

Taliban to purge ‘people of bad character’ from ranks

By Jibran Ahmad

KABUL/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – The Taliban have formed a commission to purge “people of bad character” from their ranks to protect Afghanistan’s reputation, the group said on Tuesday, in the latest sign it is trying to change from an insurgency into a regular government.

The Taliban operated as insurgent fighters for two decades before toppling a Western-backed government in August. Their membership has grown over the last two years, particularly after it became apparent that they would return to power in some form.

In an audio recording, Taliban deputy chief and Afghan interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani said: “We are learning that people of bad character had entered (Taliban) ranks and had been causing a bad name to the Islamic Emirate (Afghanistan) and serving their vested interests.”

“It is our humble wish that there should be a small number of people but they should be pure and sincere so that this movement should not get damaged,” he said in the audio, whose authenticity was confirmed to Reuters by Taliban officials.

Reports on social media have alleged that people identifying themselves as Taliban members have carried out a number of attacks on civilians and former members of the security forces of the ousted government since August, despite the Taliban leadership announcing a general amnesty. Taliban officials have repeatedly denied sanctioning these acts.

Haqqani, a shadowy figure who has never been pictured in public, is also the head of the Haqqani Network that carried out some of the most brutal attacks of the 20-year insurgency.

The commission – called the commission for the purification of the ranks – has been formed under the Ministry of Defense, which is headed by Mullah Yaqoob, the son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar.

Haqqani said the commission’s formation was urgently needed.

“I would like to ask our brothers to cooperate with the commission and don’t protect or support any individual of bad character on the basis of personal friendship,” Haqqani said.

The message was the latest indication of efforts the Taliban have been forced to make to adapt the movement from a guerrilla insurgency to a full civilian administration since August.

Taliban forces held a military parade in Kabul on Nov. 14 using captured U.S.-made armored vehicles and Russian helicopters in a display that showed their continuing transformation from an insurgent force to a regular standing army.

(Reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar and Gibran Peshimam in Kabul, Editing by William Maclean)

Israel sees Iranian atomic bomb in five years, deal or no deal

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Iran is five years away from developing a nuclear weapon, and international talks due to restart next week will do nothing to slow it down, Israel said on Tuesday, adding it reserved the right to act to protect itself.

Indirect negotiations to revive the 2015 accord, under which Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions, are due to resume in Vienna next Monday after a five-month pause.

Israel long opposed the nuclear deal, but Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government, in power since June, had previously said it could be open to a new deal with tougher restrictions. In remarks on Tuesday to a security forum, however, he sounded less accommodating.

Bennett described Iran, which denies it is pursuing nuclear arms, as being at “the most advanced stage” of a nuclear weapons program.

“In any event, even if there is a return to a deal, Israel is of course not a party to the deal and Israel is not obligated by the deal,” he told the conference, hosted by Reichman University.

Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman said: “With or without an agreement, Iran will be a nuclear state and have a nuclear weapon within five years, tops.”

Israel, itself widely believed to have nuclear weapons, has long argued that the 2015 deal was too weak to prevent Iran from pursuing a bomb. Former U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018, describing it as too soft, and Iran responded by violating some of the deal’s restrictions. President Joe Biden’s administration aims to revive it.

Israel has also complained that the nuclear agreement does nothing to rein in Iran’s missile program, or hostile activity by Iranian-backed militia.

“The Iranians have encircled the State of Israel with missiles while they sit safely in Tehran,” Bennett said. “To chase the terrorist du jour sent by the (Iranian covert) Qods Force does not pay off anymore. We must go for the dispatcher.”

Speaking separately, the chief of Israel’s air force offered cooperation with Gulf Arab partners against Iranian-made attack drones, a rare public airing of the possibility of joint operations.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Giles Elgood)

In U.S. Supreme Court case, the past could be the future on abortion

By Lawrence Hurley

OXFORD, Miss. (Reuters) – Just months before she was set to start law school in the summer of 1973, Barbara Phillips was shocked to learn she was pregnant.

Then 24, she wanted an abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court had legalized abortion nationwide months earlier with its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling recognizing a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. But abortions were not legally available at the time in Mississippi, where she lived in the small town of Port Gibson.

Phillips, a Black woman enmeshed in the civil rights movement, could feel her dream of becoming a lawyer slipping away.

“It was devastating. I was desperate,” Phillips said, sitting on the patio of her cozy one-story house in Oxford, a college town about 160 miles (260 km) north of Jackson, Mississippi’s capital.

At the time of the Roe ruling, 46 of the 50 U.S. states had some sort of criminal prohibitions on abortion. Access often was limited to wealthy and well-connected women, who tended to be white.

With a feminist group’s help, Phillips located a doctor in New York willing to provide an abortion. New York before Roe was the only state that let out-of-state women obtain abortions. She flew there for the procedure.

Now 72, Phillips does not regret her abortion. She went on to attend Northwestern law school in Chicago and realize her goal of becoming a civil rights lawyer, with a long career. Years later, she had a son when she felt the time was right.

“I was determined to decide for myself what I wanted to do with my life and my body,” Phillips said.

U.S. abortion rights are under attack unlike any time since the Roe ruling, with Republican-backed restrictions being passed in numerous states. The Supreme Court on Dec. 1 is set to hear arguments in a case in which Mississippi is seeking to revive its law, blocked by lower courts, banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mississippi has raised the stakes by explicitly asking the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Such a ruling could turn back the clock in Mississippi, which currently has just one abortion clinic, and other states to the kind of environment on abortion access that Phillips experienced nearly a half century ago.

Large swathes of America could return to an era in which women who want to end a pregnancy face the choice of undergoing a potentially dangerous illegal abortion, traveling long distances to a state where the procedure remains legal and available or buying abortion pills online.

Mississippi’s abortion law is not the only one being tested at the Supreme Court. The justices on Nov. 1 heard arguments in challenges to a Texas law banning abortion at about six weeks of pregnancy, but have not yet ruled.

TRIGGER LAWS

Mississippi is one of a dozen states with so-called trigger laws that would immediately ban abortion in all or most cases if Roe is overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

Many are in the South, so a Mississippi woman would be unable to obtain an abortion in neighboring Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee or Alabama. The nearest states where abortion would remain legal, at least in the short term, would be Illinois and Florida.

The average distance a Mississippi woman would need to drive to reach a clinic would increase from 78 miles to 380 miles (125 to 610 km) each way, according to Guttmacher.

While some abortion rights advocates fear a return to grisly illegal back-alley abortions, there has been an important development since the pre-Roe era: abortion pills. Mississippi is among 19 states imposing restrictions on medication-induced abortions.

Mississippi officials are cagey on what a post-Roe world might look like. Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who asked the court to overturn Roe, declined an interview request, as did Republican Governor Tate Reeves.

Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson, who as a Republican state legislator helped shepherd the 2018 passage of the 15-week ban, called Roe v. Wade “antiquated, old law based on antiquated and old science.”

Gipson in an interview declined to answer questions about what Mississippi – or the southeastern United States – would be like without abortion rights, focusing on the specifics of the 15-week ban.

“It’s a false narrative to paint this as a picture of an outright ban throughout the southeast,” Gipson said, noting that the Supreme Court does not have to formally overturn Roe to uphold Mississippi’s law.

In court papers, Fitch said scientific advances, including contested claims that a fetus can detect pain early in a pregnancy, emphasize how Roe and a subsequent 1992 decision that reaffirmed abortion rights are “decades out of date.”

Abortion rights advocates have said any ruling upholding Mississippi’s law would effectively gut Roe, giving states unfettered power to limit or ban the procedure.

Phillips worries about a revival of dangerous, unregulated abortions that imperil women’s lives.

“I’m afraid that many more women and girls will be in back alleys,” Phillips said. “I’m worried we are going to find them in country roads, dead.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)

As U.S. inflation hits 31-year high, banks assess risks and opportunities

By Matt Scuffham

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street banks are planning for a sustained period of higher inflation, running internal health checks, monitoring whether clients in exposed sectors could pay back loans, devising hedging strategies and counseling caution when it comes to deals.

U.S. consumer prices this month posted their biggest annual gain in 31 years, driven by surges in the cost of gasoline and other goods.

Senior bank executives have become less convinced by central bankers’ arguments that the spike is a temporary blip caused by supply chain disruption and are stepping up risk management.

Higher inflation is generally seen as a positive for banks, raising net interest income and boosting profitability. But if it jumps high too quickly, inflation could become a headwind, top bankers warn.

Goldman Sachs Chief Operating Officer John Waldron last month identified inflation as the No. 1 risk that could derail the global economy and stock markets.

JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon told analysts last month that banks “should be worried” that high inflation and high interest rates increase the risk of extreme price movements.

A sustained period of higher inflation would pose both credit and market risk to banks, and they are assessing that risk in internal stress tests, said one senior banker at a European bank with large U.S. operations.

Risk teams are also monitoring credit exposures in sectors most affected by inflation, another banker said. They include firms in the consumer discretionary, industrial and manufacturing sectors.

“We are very active with those clients, offering hedging protections,” said the banker, who asked not to be named as client discussions are confidential.

Clients that may need extra funding to get them through a period of higher inflation are being advised to raise capital while interest rates remain relatively low, the banker said.

“It’s still a very beneficial environment to be in if you need funding, but that won’t last forever.”

Investment bankers are also assessing whether higher inflation and monetary tightening could disrupt record deals and public offering pipelines.

“We expect a sustained period of higher inflation, and monetary tightening could slow the momentum in the M&A market,” said Paul Colone, U.S.-based managing partner at Alantra, a global mid-market investment bank.

Alantra is advising clients in the early stages of M&A discussions “to review the risks sustained inflation could bring to both valuation and business results,” Colone said.

Sales and trading teams, meanwhile, are taking more calls from clients looking to reposition portfolios, which are vulnerable to a loss in value. When inflation ran out of control in the 1970s, U.S. stock indices were hit hard.

“We’re seeing more interest from clients in finding some manner of inflation protection,” said Chris McReynolds, Barclays’ head of U.S. inflation trading.

Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, which are issued and backed by the U.S. government, are proving popular, he said. The securities are similar to Treasury bonds but come with protection against inflation.

Traders are also seeing demand for derivatives that offer inflation protection such as zero-coupon inflation swaps, in which a fixed rate payment on an investment is exchanged for a payment at the rate of inflation.

“People are realizing they have inflation exposure and it makes sense for them to hedge their assets and liabilities,” McReynolds said.

Banks with diversified businesses are likely to fare best during a sustained period of inflation, most analysts say.

They expect that a steepening yield curve will boost overall profit margins, while trading businesses can benefit from increased volatility and the strength of deals, and initial public offering pipelines mean investment banking activity will remain healthy.

But Dick Bove, a prominent independent banking analyst, takes a different view. He anticipates the yield curve will flatten as higher rates reduce inflation expectations, crimping profit margins.

“Perhaps for as long as 12 to 18 months, bank stock prices will rise,” he said. “At some point, however, if inflation continues to rise, the multiples on bank stocks will collapse and so will bank stock prices.”

(Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Dan Grebler)

U.S. to release oil from reserves after OPEC+ rebuffs call for more crude

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States said on Tuesday it would release millions of barrels of oil from strategic reserves in coordination with China, India, South Korea, Japan and Britain to cool prices after OPEC+ producers repeatedly ignored calls for more crude.

U.S. President Joe Biden, facing low approval ratings amid rising inflation ahead of next year’s congressional elections, has repeatedly asked the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, to pump more oil.

Tuesday’s announcement that the U.S. would release 50 million barrels was made after an official said Washington had approached major Asian energy consumers to help to drive down oil prices from near three-year highs. Britain had not previously been mentioned as being involved.

It was the first time Washington had coordinated such a move with some of the world’s largest oil consumers, officials said.

OPEC+, which includes Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies in the Gulf, as well as Russia, has rebuffed requests to pump more at its monthly meetings. It meets again on Dec. 2 to discuss policy but has so far shown no indication it will change tack.

The group has been struggling to meet existing targets under its agreement to gradually increase production by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) each month – a pace Washington sees as too slow – and it remains worried that a resurgence of coronavirus cases could once again drive down demand.

Current high prices have been caused by a sharp rebound in global demand, which cratered last year, early in the pandemic.

TALKING WITH PARTNERS

The release from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be in a loan and a sale to companies, U.S. officials said. The 32 million barrels loan will take place over the next several months, while the administration would accelerate a release of 18 million barrels in sales already approved by Congress.

“We will continue talking to international partners on this issue. The president stands ready to take additional action if needed, and is prepared to use his full authorities working in coordination with the rest of the world,” a senior U.S. administration official told reporters.

India said in a statement it would release 5 million barrels, while Britain said it would allow the voluntary release of 1.5 million barrels of oil from privately-held reserves.

South Korea said details on the amount and timing of the release of oil reserves would be decided after discussions with the United States and other allies.

Japanese media said Tokyo would announce its plans on Wednesday.

Benchmark Brent crude was trading above $80 a barrel on Tuesday, up from its levels before the announcement but still well below last month’s three-year high of more than $86.

The effort by Washington to team up with major Asian economies to lower energy prices sends a warning to OPEC and other big producers that they need to address concerns about high crude prices, up more than 50% so far this year.

Suhail Al-Mazrouei, energy minister of the United Arab Emirates, one of OPEC’s biggest producers, said before details of the release from U.S. reserves was announced that he saw “no logic” in lifting UAE supply for global markets.

An OPEC+ source said releasing reserves would complicate calculations for OPEC+, as it monitors the market on a monthly basis.

HEIGHTENED TENSION

“These developments point to a period of heightened political tensions between the world’s biggest consumers and OPEC+, which implies increased oil price volatility,” said Henning Gloystein at Eurasia Group.

The United States historically has worked on any coordinated stocks release with the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), a bloc of 30 industrialized energy consuming nations.

Japan and South Korea are IEA members. China and India are only associate members.

Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch described the U.S. release of 50 million barrels as “quite significant” and more than expected before the announcement. “The question is the time horizon of the release and how OPEC+ will react,” he added.

Under a swap from U.S. reserves, oil companies taking crude must return it – or the refined product – plus interest. Swaps are typically offered when oil firms face supply disruptions, such as a pipeline outage or damage from a hurricane.

Outright sales are less common. U.S. presidents have authorized emergency sales three times, most recently in 2011 during a war in OPEC member Libya. Sales also took place during the Gulf War in 1991 and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington; Additional reporting by Sonali Paul in Melbourne, Ghaida Ghantous in Dubai, Ahmad Ghaddar in London, OPEC team; Writing by Richard Valdmanis and Edmumd Blair; Editing by Carmel Crimmins and Alexander Smith)

U.S. holiday air travel week opens briskly

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans have begun hitting the roads and skies in large numbers in advance of Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday as weather so far looks favorable for travel plans.

On Sunday, the Transportation Security Administration screened 2.21 million U.S air passengers, the fourth consecutive day with checkpoint volume topping 2 million.

The TSA said Friday was the single busiest air travel day since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, with 2.24 million travelers screened.

AccuWeather said Monday that “a largely quiet weather pattern should prevent widespread travel worries from the weather ahead of Thanksgiving.”

The weather forecaster added that “some Americans could still face minor weather-related delays during one of the busiest travel periods of the year – and weather for the trip home may be a different story.”

As vaccination rates have risen, many Americans are traveling for the holidays after skipping family gatherings last November and December.

Travel group AAA forecasts 53.4 million people will travel for the Thanksgiving holiday, up 13% from 2020, with most travelers going by car. About 48.3 million Thanksgiving travelers are expected to go by car, up from 47.1 million last year, but still below 2019’s 49.9 million.

Those on the roads will face gasoline prices hovering near the highest since 2014, and the high prices likely will prompt some Americans not to make holiday trips.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said some Americans “are responding to the prices by slamming the car door shut and staying off the road.”

TSA expects to screen about 20 million air passengers during the busy Thanksgiving travel period, compared with nearly 26 million in the same period in 2019.

“We are ready,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske told reporters on Friday at Washington Reagan National Airport. “We will be able to handle the passenger volumes that we anticipate seeing.”

Airlines have ramped up staffing and offered bonuses and other incentives to employees facing the busy holiday travel season.

Delta Air Lines said it expects to fly up to 5.6 million passengers from Friday through Nov. 30, nearly 300% over 2020’s 2.2 million Delta passengers for the period but still below the 6.3 million passengers during the same period in 2019.

United Airlines said it anticipates more than 4.5 million passengers during the Thanksgiving travel period – about 88% of 2019 volume.

United Chief Executive Scott Kirby told Skift last week he has confidence in the airline’s ability to fly its holiday schedule. “We’ve left ourselves a margin of error,” Kirby said.

He cautioned, however, that problems can ripple and “If you are not careful it can cascade into a meltdown.”

Some airlines have in recent weeks faced weather issues, resulting in hundreds of daily cancellations over several days.

United said it was adding about 700 domestic flights for Thanksgiving week, and would fly 87% of its 2019 domestic schedule in November.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Dan Grebler)

At least 8 dead in mangrove after gun battle with Rio police

By Rodrigo Viga Gaier

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Residents on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro on Monday found the corpses of at least eight people in a mangrove after a sustained gun battle with local police.

The bodies were found near a complex of slums called Salgueiro, in the city of Sao Goncalo, a poor and violent region that is part of metropolitan Rio.

Locals told media outlets that they believed other bodies would be found.

“The bodies were all thrown into a mangrove swamp, with signs of torture. They were tossed one on top of the other. This was clearly a massacre,” one resident told the G1 news website.

Other residents, who also declined to be named, gave similar accounts to other outlets.

The bodies were found after a weekend-long operation in the area, which began after a local police officer died while on patrol on Saturday. Sao Gonacalo is overseen by the 7th battalion, which has long been one of Rio state’s most deadly.

Rio’s military police did not respond to locals’ accusations of officers having been involved in torture or multiple killings but said in a statement: “So far, eight bodies have been found.”

Police said they had entered the region to “stabilize” it after violence from alleged drug gangs.

They said officers would remain in the area to allow civil police officers to investigate.

In 2019, Reuters reported on the shooting to death of a local resident by officers from the 7th amid a sharp rise in police killings. So far this year, officers from the 7th battalion killed 1,096 people, the highest of any battalion in the state, and up 17% from the first nine months of last year.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga GaierWriting and additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Alison Williams and David Gregorio)