Rio police round up 231 addicts after closing down huge open-air drugs market dubbed 'Crackland' as Olympic clean up begins

            A crack addict gives bread to another in the surroundings as the clean-up of crack addicts takes its toll

More than 2,000 heavily armed officers stormed into the Manguinhos and Jacarezinho complexes, crews working with police support by Wednesday had rounded up 231 crack users, and another 67 who had migrated elsewhere looking for the drug.

The area had been Rio's biggest open-air crack market, known as 'cracolandia,' or 'crackland,' where hundreds of users bought the drug, consumed it and lingered in shacks and on blankets, picking through trash for recyclables to sell so they could buy more.

'These people have to be cured and treated,' Jose Mariano Beltrame, who heads security for Rio state, said during a Tuesday visit to the area.

'They're not coming back to Jacarezinho and Manguinhos; the area is now occupied.'

Drug dealers tired of the hassle posed by the addicts and by incursions of city health and welfare workers earlier this year banned crack in Mandela, one of the slums. 

Police now have taken over the entire complex housing about 70,000 people as part of a state program to make Rio safer before the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

                                           Could this be a young victim of the drug cycle in Rio?

The city and state of Rio are also responding. On Wednesday, the state security department announced a program aimed at qualifying police officers to better work with crack addicts. The campaign will train 200 officers in community policing, familiarize them with the support network for drug users, and teach them how to best approach addicts in high-risk situations.

The Rev. Antonio Carlos Costa, founder of the River of Peace social service group, works with drug users in the area. He fears for the crack addicts' lives as they travel out looking for the drug.

'They're not welcomed anywhere,' said Costa. 'They're desperate, they're confused, they're dirty, and I'm afraid they could suffer violence as they try to find shelter and drugs in other parts of towns.'

                                               This crack user, is either well under the influence or too relaxed

Costa's organization is establishing support groups for drug users in these police-occupied communities, and he'd like to see the state do the same, perhaps in partnership with civil society.

'This is a problem that won't be solved only with money and a shelter,' he said. 'These people are going to need someone who cares, who has patience. They're going to need solidarity.'

By Dailmail