RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 29 (Reuters) – The deadliest police operation towards drug gangs in Brazil’s historical past killed no less than 121 individuals, authorities stated on Wednesday, as Rio de Janeiro residents lined a avenue with dozens of corpses discovered in a single day.
State police stated the raids concentrating on a serious drug gang had been deliberate exhaustively for greater than two months, and had been designed to drive suspects right into a forested hillside the place a particular operations unit was ready in ambush.
“The elevated lethality of the operation was expected but not desired,” Victor Santos, head of safety for Rio state, informed a information convention. He additionally promised an investigation into any police “misconduct.”
Rio police confirmed 121 dyings up to now, together with 4 officers. Public defenders stated the ultimate depend would rise to no less than 132.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stated the scourge of drug violence needed to be confronted, calling for coordinated work that targets the gangs with out placing police and harmless households in danger.
“We cannot accept that organized crime continues to destroy families, oppress residents, and spread drugs and violence throughout the cities,” he stated in a put up on X.
Residents of the Penha neighborhood in Rio gathered dozens of corpses from the encompassing forest in a single day and lined up greater than 70 of the our bodies in the midst of a foremost avenue.
“I just want to take my son out of here and bury him,” stated Taua Brito, a mom of a kind of killed, surrounded by weeping mourners and onlookers on both aspect of the lengthy row of our bodies, a few of which had been coated with sheets or luggage.
A bike caravan set off from the neighborhood within the afternoon to protest the police violence outdoors the governor’s palace, the place demonstrators gathered waving Brazilian flags stained with purple palm marks.
The town’s most threatening police drug raid earlier than Tuesday was in 2021, when 28 individuals had been killed within the Jacarezinho neighborhood.
The newest raids had been additionally Brazil’s deadliest ever police operation. In 1992, 111 prisoners died when Sao Paulo police stormed the Carandiru Penitentiary to place down a rebel.
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UN URGES INVESTIGATION
UN officers and safety specialists criticized the heavy casualties of the military-style operation. The United Nations human rights workplace stated the killings add to a pattern of extraordinarily deadly police raids in Brazil’s marginalized communities.
“We remind authorities of their obligations under international human rights law, and urge prompt and effective investigations,” the company stated in an announcement.
Kin of the fallen described proof of abstract executions, together with certain limbs, knife wounds and gunshots to the face and neck.
“Several families reported signs of torture on the victims’ bodies,” stated Guilherme Pimentel, a human rights lawyer working with households of the deceased at Rio’s police morgue.
Santos, Rio state’s safety secretary, stated: “Any misconduct that may have occurred, which I believe did not happen, will be investigated.”
He stated there was no connection between the violence and the worldwide occasions Rio will host subsequent week associated to the United Nations COP30 local weather negotiations, together with the C40 summit of mayors addressing international warming and Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.
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Rio Governor Claudio Castro stated he was sure these killed within the operation had been criminals firing weapons from the forest.
“I don’t think anyone would be walking in the forest on the day of the conflict,” he informed reporters, calling the raids an effort to fight “narcoterrorism.”
“The only real victims were the police officers,” he stated.
The Rio state authorities stated the operation was its largest ever to focus on the Comando Vermelho gang, which controls the drug commerce in a number of favelas – poor and densely populated settlements woven by means of town’s hilly oceanside terrain.
Police stated they’d arrested 113 suspects within the operation and seized 118 firearms.
No less than 50 federal police officers could be quickly deployed to Rio assist battle organized crime, Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski stated.
(Reporting by Janaina Quinet and Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Further reporting by Oliver Griffin, Isabel Teles, Luciana Magalhaes, Eduardo Simoes and Gabriel Araujo in Sao Paulo, and Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia; Modifying by Brad Haynes, Rosalba O’Brien and Stephen Coates)
