SAO PAULO: Brazil has given special training for more than 10,000 members of an elite federal security force to help better control demonstrations expected during the World Cup later this year, the Justice Ministry and a top security official said Friday.

Col Alexandre Augusto Aragon, who heads the elite National Security Force, said that 10,000 riot troops selected from state police forces throughout Brazil will be deployed in the 12 cities that will host World Cup matches June 12-July 13.

“We’ve have been concerned with this [security during the World Cup] before the protests that took place earlier ... because we don’t wait around for things to happen,” he told the G1 Internet portal for Globo news. “The violence of recent protests is what scared us.”

The Justice Ministry, which oversees the National Security Force, confirmed in an emailed statement that more than 10,000 National Security Force members have received training for patrolling protests since 2011 and that they’ll be used during the Cup, augmenting the security work of local police and soldiers.

At the peak of last year’s protests, one million people took to the streets across Brazil in a single day, complaining initially of higher bus fares, corruption and poor public services, and then extending to the billions of dollars being spent on the World Cup and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Police faced sharp criticism for scenes of brutal crackdowns on the protests, including at times seemingly random use of pepper spray, rubber bullets and stun grenades.

The demonstrations coincided with the Confederations Cup football tournament, a warm-up tournament for the World Cup.

Jerome Valcke, the top FIFA official in charge of the World Cup, said recently that the tournament would have “the highest level of security you can imagine” to contain any violence.—AP