Corpses Line Rio Street After Brazil’s Deadliest Operation Against Drug Gangs
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 29 (Reuters) – Deadliest police At least 121 people have died in an operation against drug gangs in Brazilian history, authorities said on Wednesday, as residents of Rio de Janeiro lined a street filled with dozens of bodies overnight.
Situation police he said spoilThe operation to target a major drug ring had been extensively planned for more than two months and was designed to drive the suspects to a wooded hill where a special operations unit lay in wait.
“The increased lethality of the operation was expected but not desired,” Rio state security chief Victor Santos said at a news conference. He also promised an investigation into any incidents police “abuse.”
Rio police approved 121 deathSo far, four police officers are involved. Public defenders said the final number will rise to at least 132.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the scourge of drug violence must be confronted and called for coordinated work targeting gangs. police and innocent families are at risk.
“We cannot accept that organized crime continues to destroy families, oppress residents, and spread drugs and violence across cities,” he said in a post on X.
Residents of the Penha neighborhood in Rio collected dozens of bodies from the surrounding forest overnight and lined up more than 70 corpses in the middle of a main street.
“I just want to get my son out of here and bury him,” said Taua Brito, the mother of one of those killed, as she was surrounded by weeping mourners and onlookers on either side of the long row of bodies, some covered with sheets or bags.
A motorcycle caravan set out from the neighborhood in the afternoon to protest the incident. police Violence broke out outside the governor’s palace, where demonstrators gathered waving Brazilian flags stained with red palm prints.
The city’s deadliest police medicine spoil Before Tuesday, 28 people had been killed in the Jacarezinho neighborhood in 2021.
Latest spoilThey were also Brazil’s deadliest ever police Operation. In 1992, 111 prisoners died in Sao Paulo. police raided Carandiru Prison to suppress the rebellion.
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UN WANTS AN INVESTIGATION
UN officials and security experts criticized the military-style operation’s heavy casualties. The killings contribute to a highly lethal trend, the United Nations human rights office says police spoilin Brazil’s marginalized communities.
“We remind the authorities of their obligations under international human rights law and demand rapid and effective investigations,” the agency said in a statement. he said.
Relatives of the martyrs described evidence of extrajudicial killings, including binding of limbs, stab wounds and bullets to the face and neck.
“Many families reported that there were signs of torture on the bodies of the victims,” said Guilherme Pimentel, a human rights lawyer who works with the families of those killed in Rio. police morgue.
Santos, Rio state’s security minister, said: “Any abuse that I believe may have occurred (which I believe did not) will be investigated.”
He said there was no connection between the violence and the global events Rio will host next week. United Nations COP30 climate negotiationsincluding the C40 summit of mayors addressing global warming and Prince William’s Earthshot Award.
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Rio Governor Claudio Castro said he was sure that those killed in the operation were criminals who fired guns from the forest.
“I don’t think anyone would walk in the forest on the day of the conflict,” he told reporters. spoilThis is an effort to combat “narcoterrorism.”
“The only real victims police “civil servants,” he said.
Rio’s state government said the operation was the largest yet targeting the Comando Vermelho gang, which controls the drug trade in several favelas, poor and densely populated settlements dotted across the city’s rugged oceanfront terrain.
Police He said that they arrested 113 suspects and confiscated 118 firearms during the operation.
At least 50 federal police Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski said police officers would be temporarily sent to Rio to help fight organized crime.
(Reporting by Janaina Quinet and Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Additional reporting by Oliver Griffin, Isabel Teles, Luciana Magalhaes, Eduardo Simoes and Gabriel Araujo in Sao Paulo and Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia; Editing by Brad Haynes, Rosalba O’Brien and Stephen Coates)
