Rio de Janeiro — More than 60 bodies were lined up on a street in Rio de Janeiro’s Penha favela on Wednesday morning, according to a Reuters witness, after one of the most lethal police operations in the Brazilian city’s history.
A total of at least 132 people were killed during a police raid targeting a major drug gang in the city, the Rio de Janeiro public defender’s office said on Wednesday.
Residents who went looking for lost relatives had collected many of the corpses from a forested area behind their neighborhood, according to people at the scene. Photos showed weeping mourners and onlookers gathered either side of the long row of bodies, some of which were covered with cloths or bags.
“I just want to take my son out of here and bury him,” said Taua Brito, a mother of one of those killed.
The police operation came days before Rio hosts global events related to the UN climate summit known as COP30, including the C40 global summit of mayors tackling climate change and British Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.
Rio has hosted several global events over the past decade, including the 2016 Olympics, the G20 summit last year and the Brics summit in July, without violence on the scale now seen.
The Rio state government said the operation was its largest to target the Comando Vermelho gang, which controls the drug trade in several favelas, which are poor and densely populated settlements woven through the city’s hilly oceanside terrain.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who landed in Brasilia late on Tuesday from a trip to Malaysia, has yet to comment on the raids. His justice minister said on Tuesday the government had not received any request for support from state authorities.
Several civil society groups criticised the heavy casualties of the military-style raid. The UN human rights office said it adds to a trend of extreme lethal consequences of police raids in Brazil’s marginalised communities. “We remind authorities of their obligations under international human rights law and urge prompt and effective investigations,” it said in a statement.
Reuters
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