Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Reuters
The death toll from a police raid on a drug gang in a poor Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood on Thursday has risen to 28, civil police said on Friday, the deadliest operation ever carried out by the security forces in the Brazilian city.
The bodies of three more victims removed from the favela on Friday were men with links to organised crime, according to police. Twenty-four other people and a police officer also died in the operation in the northern Rio neighbourhood of Jacarezinho.
People attend a protest against police violence outside Jacarezinho slum after a police operation which resulted in 25 deaths in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 7th May . Banners read: “Justice for Jacarezinho” and “Stop killing us.” PICTURE: Reuters/Ricardo Moraes
“Intelligence confirmed that the dead were drug dealers. They fired at officers, to kill. They had orders to confront,” Civil Police chief Allan Turnowski told reporters.
The bloodbath prompted criticism from human rights groups including Amnesty International, which lambasted the police for the “reprehensible and unjustifiable” loss of life in a neighbourhood mostly populated by Black and poor people.
The United Nations human rights office on Friday called for an independent investigation into the operation. UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said the police deployed a “disproportionate and unnecessary” use of force.
Earlier, a Supreme Court justice called for Brazil’s top prosecutor to investigate Rio de Janeiro’s deadliest police raid in over a decade, which has drawn condemnation from the United Nations, human rights groups and local activists.
“The facts reported seem grave and, in one of the videos, there are indications of acts that, in theory, could amount to arbitrary execution,” said Judge Edson Fachin.
Last year, Fachin issued an order for Rio police to suspend operations during the coronavirus pandemic in the informal shantytowns known as favelas – “except in absolutely exceptional cases” that had been pre-approved by prosecutors.
Rio’s police are among the most deadly in the world, but right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro has argued that if anything they need fewer restrictions on lethal force.
Asked about those killed in Jazarezinho on Friday, Vice President Hamilton Mourao said they were “all bandits.”
Jacarezinho residents and activists marched outside a police station on Friday with a banner demanding, “Stop killing us.”
“They would have surrendered, but the police came in to kill, kill, kill. Twenty-five mothers crying. I want my son,” said Adriana Santana Araújo, 36, mourning the loss of her 23-year-old son.
Daniele dos Santos said her 32-year-old husband had gone out to buy bread and was caught in the crossfire.
“He got a bullet in the leg and the cop ended up executing him. He was alive. He wasn’t armed. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.
Police said everyone killed but the officer were suspected drug traffickers reacting violently to police presence.
– Additional reporting by EDUARDO SIMOES in Sao Paulo and SERGIO QUEIROZ in Rio de Janeiro.
