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WORLD NEWS Wednesday 2 december 2020

Dozens of bandits seize Brazilian city, loot bank

By DAVID BILLER the gunmen had been hit
Associated Press by police bullets, the Santa
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Doz- Catarina police force said
ens of gunmen armed with on its Twitter account.
assault rifles invaded a city State-run Bank of Brazil said
in southern Brazil overnight in an emailed statement
Tuesday and took control that its branch in Criciuma
of the streets as they as- will remain closed, and that
saulted a local bank. it doesn’t provide informa-
Video broadcast on the tion regarding the amount
Globo television network of money taken. It didn’t
showed hooded men respond to an AP request
dressed in black walking for comment about local
the streets of Criciuma in media reports the branch
the state of Santa Cata- was a regional treasury.
rina, and local residents The brazen robbery re-
being held hostage during sembled another that took
the takeover, which began place in July in the city of
around midnight and last- Botucatu, in Sao Paulo
ed almost two hours. Shots state.There, around 30
echoed across the city of armed men blew up a bank
some 220,000 people. branch, took residents hos-
At least 30 assailants and tage and exchanged gun-
10 cars were involved in the Military police officers carry a bag filled with money left behind by armed bank robbers, in fire with police officers be-
well-planned operation, Criciuma, Santa Catarina state, Brazil, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020. fore making their getaway.
Anselmo Cruz, head of the Associated Press The similarity between the
state police’s robbery and guard and a police offi- painting crosswalks. Dama- shooting stopped. two attacks indicated they
kidnapping department, cer, who was shot in the sio had no way of knowing Images on Globo showed may have been coordinat-
told a news conference, abdomen and remained they would soon be taken a bank vault with a square- ed by one of Brazil’s pow-
speaking alongside the hospitalized in serious con- hostage. shaped hole in it and a con- erful organized crime and
governor and the mayor. dition Tuesday. “It was an “If I had been delayed 20 voy of criminals’ vehicles as drug trafficking rings, said
They blocked access to the unprecedented action for minutes, just a little later, I they made their escape. Cássio Thyone, a board
city — including with burn- the state. There was never would’ve been screwed,” Bills were scattered across member of the non-profit
ing vehicles — to prevent anything with this scope, the 27-year-old Damasio the ground in one area of Brazilian Forum on Public
police reinforcements from this violence,” Cruz said in told The Associated Press the city, and newspaper Safety. Such incidents have
responding swiftly, and de- a separate interview with by phone. “I got home and Folha de S.Paulo reported occurred with some fre-
ployed explosives in the Globo News. The television 15 minutes later heard the that police arrested sev- quency over the past de-
robbery. network quoted him as say- shots.” eral people who collected cade, he said.
The gunmen traded fire ing the robbers fired bullets Through a window of his 810,000 reais ($150,000) “Crime has moved into the
with officers in the city cen- with calibers capable of home, Damasio said he worth of the notes. interior; cities that didn’t
ter and at a police station, downing a helicopter. saw the men firing into the Police later located the at- suffer from crime have be-
Santa Catarina’s military José Damasio was driving air — with each high-power tackers’ vehicles in a corn- come vulnerable because
police said on their offi- home from work around shot booming like a bomb. field of a neighboring mu- of their characteristics,”
cial Twitter account. Two 11:30 p.m. when he passed He took shelter in a back nicipality. Some of the cars’ said Thyone, highlighting
people were wounded street sweepers and oth- room with his mother and interiors were stained with limited police presence
in the firefight: a security er municipal employees remained there until the blood, indicating some of and fewer access points.q

76 Franciscan nuns test positive at monastery in Germany

BERLIN (AP) — Seventy-six Catholic nuns in Germany
Catholic nuns have tested are elderly women be-
positive for COVID-19 after cause convents have had
an outbreak at a Francis- difficulties for decades re-
can convent in northwest- cruiting young women for
ern Germany, church au- their cause.
thorities said Tuesday. Reiker said they were still
Another 85 nuns received waiting for the test results
negative test results at the of the 160 non-clerical
monastery in Thuine, not far employees of the monas-
from the Dutch border, the tery, including nurses work-
convent’s Mother Superior ing at the monastery’s old
told The Associated Press. people’s home, and others
“We are grateful that so far working at the monastery’s
nobody is in the hospital,” kitchen and wash house. Exterior view of the monastery of the Franciscan Order in Thuine, Germany, Tuesday, Dec.1, 2020.
Sister Maria Cordis Reiker The nuns also run a boys’ Associated Press
said. Local health authori- boarding school and sev- she said. tive over the last 24 hours While the number of new
ties put the the entire mon- eral other schools including She said local health and and 388 others died of virus cases among young-
astery under quarantine a vocational school. school officials were in COVID-19, the country’s er people is decreasing
late last week after the first “We don’t know how things touch with the schools. national disease control in Germany, it’s going up
cases of coronavirus were will continue regarding our Overall in Germany, 13,604 center, the Robert Koch In- among older people, the
discovered there. Most schools, it’s all still in flux,” more people tested posi- stitute, reported. institute said.q