At least 18 people, many of them innocent bystanders, were killed in an early Saturday shootout at a nightclub in Fortaleza, in northeastern Brazil, officials said.
“We can confirm 14 deaths,” Andre Costa, security secretary for the state of Ceara – of which Fortaleza is the capital – told a press conference.
Seven of the victims were identified: three men, two women and two teenagers. Local reported that eight women and six men were killed.
A spokesperson from the Institut Jose Frota hospital said that six people, including a 12-year-old boy, had been rushed in for emergency care. Authorities did not say exactly how many people were injured.
The shooting broke out at 1:30 am on Saturday when a group of heavily armed bandits stormed a party venue packed with young people in Cajazeiras, a neighbourhood in Fortaleza, north-east Brazil. The armed men arrived in three vehicles at the Forro do Gago nightclub.
“It’s a brutal scene, a massacre. Something you never see in Ceara,” a police officer, who asked to remain anonymous, told.
Local media reported that the shootout was a clash between members of two rival drug trafficking gangs.
Officials however remained tight lipped. “The investigation is still ongoing,” Costa said.
On January 7, a war between drug gangs already claimed four lives in the suburbs of Fortaleza.
Last year there was a record 5,114 murders in the state of Ceara, a 50 percent rise from 2016.