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31-10-2025
RIO DE JANEIRO: More than 60 dead bodies were lined up on a street in Rio de Janeiro’s Penha favela on Wednesday morning, according to a witness, after one of the most lethal police operations in the Brazilian city’s history.
State authorities said on Tuesday that at least 64 people, including four police officers, were killed in raids targeting a major drug gang.
Brazilian media and a person familiar with the matter said the bodies on the street had not been included in Tuesday’s tally. Security officials were expected to update the official death toll at 11:30 a.m. local time (1430 GMT).
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 United Nations 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 2024 G20 summit and the BRICS summit in July, without violence on the scale seen on Tuesday.
The Rio state government said the operation was its largest ever to target the Comando Vermelho gang, which controls the drug trade in several favelas, poor and densely populated settlements woven through the city’s hilly ocean-side 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 criticized 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 marginalized communities.
“We remind authorities of their obligations under international human rights law and urge prompt and effective investigations,” it said in a statement.
After the most intense fighting subsided, a journalist saw police from a special operations unit rounding up dozens of shirtless men. Sobbing family members gathered outside of a public hospital attending to those injured.
The Rio state government called Tuesday’s operation the largest ever targeting the Comando Vermelho gang.
Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski said the federal government had not received any request for support from state authorities prior to the “bloody” operation, adding he had been following developments through media reports.
The clashes disrupted the routines of dozens of schools and medical facilities, redirected bus routes and snarled traffic across several neighborhoods in the state capital.
Castro confirmed 81 arrests as authorities sought to serve 250 arrest and search warrants in an operation targeting alleged drug kingpins and their money laundering operations.
However, some civil society groups criticized the heavy casualties in a military-style operation. Carolina Ricardo, executive director at security think tank Sou da Paz, called it a tragedy.
“This is a completely failed approach, because it does not actually target the links in the drug production chain,” she said. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
