A minimum of 132 individuals had been killed in what authorities described as Brazil’s largest police operation towards drug gangs, officers mentioned on Wednesday. In Rio de Janeiro, residents lined a avenue with dozens of our bodies recovered in a single day following the raids.The our bodies of the lads had been positioned in a single row alongside the pavement of a sq. on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Residents mentioned many had been stripped to their underwear to assist kin establish them, whereas others had been coated with bedsheets.
The way it unfolded
Brazil’s state police mentioned the raids, aimed toward dismantling a serious drug gang, had been deliberate over two months and had been meant to pressure suspects right into a forested hillside, the place a particular operations unit was positioned to intercept them.“The elevated lethality of the operation was anticipated however not desired,” Victor Santos, Rio state’s head of safety, mentioned at a information convention, as cited by Reuters. He added that authorities would examine any cases of police “misconduct.”Residents of Rio’s Penha neighborhood collected dozens of our bodies from the encompassing forest in a single day and positioned greater than 70 of them alongside the middle of a major avenue.“Extra our bodies saved coming,” Rene Silva, a neighborhood chief from the neighborhood the place the raids happened, was quoted as saying by the New York Instances. He estimated that volunteers recovered between 50 and 60 our bodies via the night time. “Moms, wives, kids had been there, crying,” Silva added. Uncertainty remained over how the large-scale operation unfolded and whether or not civilians had been among the many victims. An official later acknowledged that the operation had not achieved its major purpose of capturing a prime gang chief.President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reportedly dispatched a ministerial committee to Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday and pledged federal help for the forensic investigation.“We can not settle for that organized crime continues to destroy households, oppress residents, and unfold medicine and violence all through the cities,” Lula mentioned via a put up on X. Rio state governor Cláudio Castro described the raids as a “success”, as he cited the arrests of 113 alleged members of the Pink Command gang, together with the seizure of 118 weapons and a substantial quantity of medicine.Castro mentioned the operation was meant to curb the Pink Command’s rising affect and forestall the gang from increasing its management over bigger components of town.The most recent raids marked the deadliest police operation in Brazil’s historical past. The earlier highest dying toll was recorded in 2021, when 28 individuals had been killed throughout a police anti-drug raid in Rio’s Jacarezinho neighborhood.
