Brazil police raid squatter tower after siege

Brazilian military police have violently removed scores of homeless people squatting in a rundown hotel-turned-drug den after a laying siege for days.

More than 200 soldiers stormed the Tower Hotel in Brasilia at dawn yesterday, and quickly came under attack from squatters throwing bricks and stones, local newspaper Metropoles reports.

The squatters reportedly used children as human shields, before setting fire to the building using a gas cylinder.

Video filmed from an adjacent building shows police firing tear gas from helicopters while squatters try to barricade themselves near a stairwell.

They are then forced onto the ground and arrested.

Police had laid siege to the building for almost a week, cutting off electricity, water and food in order to force the estimated 150 homeless out.

The Tower Hotel had been abandoned since 2013, and was occupied from October last year by members from activist group the Popular Resistance Movement.

Police chief Colonel Antonio Carlos said the building, which is set to be demolished, had become a haven for drugdealers and users.

"It's a very unhealthy place," he said.

It is not known where the squatters will be relocated to.