At least 119 dead in Brazil police raid, bodies line streets as locals mourn

A police raid that led to violent clashes with a gang in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, resulted in at least 119 deaths, public defenders said on Wednesday, a day after the government ordered the operation.

According to Reuters, state police said the raids had been exhaustively planned for more than two months and were designed to push gang suspects operating in the Complexo da Penha favela into nearby hillside areas, where a special operations unit stood waiting to ambush the alleged assailants.

Rio police officials confirmed 119 deaths so far, including 115 suspects and four police officers, almost double the figure authorities gave one day prior. On Tuesday, the force said about 2,500 police and soldiers killed 60 suspected gang members.

Police spokesman Felipe Curi said additional bodies were retrieved from a forest close to the raided neighbourhoods, alleging that residents had removed camouflage equipment and clothing worn by the deceased gang suspects found in the woods.

Their alleged actions will be investigated as evidence tampering, he added.

On Wednesday, in the Penha neighbourhood, a low-income area located in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro, residents surrounded the bodies of the dead, which had been collected in trucks and displayed in a central square.

They shouted “massacre” and “justice” before forensic teams came to retrieve the bodies, The Associated Press reported.

Rio state officials say the use of extreme force and the violent nature of the raid did not come as a surprise to authorities.

“The elevated lethality of the operation was expected but not desired,” Victor Santos, head of security for Rio state, said during a news conference.

The state government said 93 rifles and more than half a ton of drugs were seized.

The raid sparked gunfire exchanges between gang members and police, leading to widespread chaos, school closures, car fires and roadblocks.

On Wednesday morning, local activist Raull Santiago said he and a team of others found 15 bodies before sunrise.

“We saw executed people shot in the back, shots to the head, stab wounds, people tied up. This level of brutality, the hatred spread — there’s no other way to describe it except as a massacre,” he told the AP.

Meanwhile, state officials argue its forces are fighting a war of “narco-terrorism” and that those who had been killed were resisting arrest.

Rio is no stranger to deadly police raids: in May 2021, 28 people were killed in the Jacarezinho favela, and in 2005, 29 people were killed in  Rio’s Baixada Fluminense region.

The brutality of Tuesday’s operation has garnered widespread condemnation from human rights agencies, including the UN, which called for an investigation into the high number of reported fatalities and reminded authorities of their “obligations under international human rights law.”

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“Following the deadliest police operation in Rio de Janeiro’s history, we call for comprehensive & effective reform of policing methods,” the organization wrote on X on Wednesday.

“Violations cannot go unpunished. Proper accountability processes must lead to truth and justice to avoid further impunity & violence,” the statement continued.

Criminal gangs have strengthened their foothold in Brazilian society in recent years, according to the AP, including in the Amazon rainforest.

Filipe dos Anjos, secretary general of favela rights organization FAFERJ, told the news outlet that this kind of police operation doesn’t solve the problem, as those who were killed can be easily replaced.

“In about 30 days, organized crime will already be reorganized in the territory, doing what it always does: selling drugs, stealing cargo, collecting payments and fees,” he said.

“In terms of concrete results for the population, for society, this kind of operation achieves practically nothing,” he added.

— With files from Reuters and The Associated Press