Brazil's governmenton Wednesday, June 19, 2013, announced the deployment of elite security forces to five major cities after a wave of protests which saw almost a quarter of a million people demand better public services.

BBC said members of the National Public Security Force, FNSP, were being deployed in Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Ceara and the capital, Brasilia. All of these cities are hosting games of the FIFA Confederations Cup. The Ministry of Justice said Recife was the only Confederations Cup host city not to request the support of the FNSP. The announcement of troop deployment came after riot police and protesters clashed again on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 in Sao Paulo.

Shops and banks in Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo, were vandalised on Tuesday by groups of masked activists who fought other demonstrators trying to stop the violence. The protest was the latest in a wave of demonstrations engulfing at least a dozen cities. President Dilma Rousseff said she understood the demonstrators’ concerns, but her comments did not appear to have assuaged their anger.

The protests were sparked by anger at a rise in public transport fare prices in Sao Paulo on June 2, 2013, but have since mushroomed into much broader discontent with corruption, alleged poor state of health and education services and the high cost of living. They are the largest since 1992 when people took to the streets to demand the impeachment of then President Fernando Collor de Mello.