Protests erupt in Brazil after police raid leaves at least 119 dead

A massive police raid on a drug gang embedded in low-income neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro that left at least 119 people dead drew protests for excessive force on Wednesday and calls for the Rio's governor to resign.

Dozens of favelas residents gathered in front of the state's government headquarters shouting assassins! and waving Brazilian flags stained with red paint, a day after Rio's deadliest raid and hours after families and residents laid dozens of dead bodies on a street in one of the targeted communities to show the magnitude of the operation.

Questions quickly arose about the death count and the state of the bodies, with reports of disfigurement and knife wounds. Brazil's Supreme Court, prosecutors and lawmakers asked Castro to provide detailed information about the operation.

This was a massacre, said Barbara Barbosa, a domestic worker from the Penha complex of favelas, one of the two huge communities targeted in the police operation. She said her son was killed in a prior operation in Penha.

Do we have a death sentence? Stop killing us, said activist Rute Sales, 56. Many residents came Penha in Rio's poor, northern zone to the imposing Guanabara Palace on motorbikes.

The toll of 115 suspects and four policemen killed was an increase over what authorities originally said were 60 suspects dead in Tuesday's raid by about 2,500 police and soldiers in the favelas of Penha and Complexo de Alemao.

Felipe Curi, Rio state police secretary, told a news conference that bodies of additional suspects were found in a wooded area where he said they had worn camouflage while battling with security forces. He said local residents had removed clothing and equipment from the bodies, in what would be investigated as evidence tampering.

"These individuals were in the woods, equipped with camouflage clothing, vests and weapons. Now many of them appeared wearing underwear or shorts, with no equipment, as if they had come through a portal and changed clothes, Curi said.

Earlier Wednesday, in the neighbourhood of Penha, residents had surrounded many of the bodies collected in trucks and displayed in a main square and shouted massacre" and justice before forensic authorities arrived to retrieve the remains.

They can take them to jail, why kill them like this? Lots of them were alive and calling for help, resident Elisangela Silva Santos, 50, said during the gathering in Penha. Yes, they're traffickers, but they're human.

The tally of suspects arrested stood at 113 up from 81 cited previously, Curi said. The state government said some 90 rifles and more than a ton of drugs were seized.

Police and soldiers had launched the raid in helicopters, armored vehicles and on foot, targeting the Red Command gang. They drew gunfire and other retaliation from gang members, sparking scenes of chaos across the city on Tuesday. Schools in the affected areas shuttered, a local university canceled classes, and roads were blocked with buses used as barricades.

Many shops remained closed Wednesday morning in Penha, where local activist Raull Santiago said he was part of a team that found about 15 bodies before dawn.

We saw executed people: shot in the back, shots to the head, stab wounds, people tied up. This level of brutality, the hatred that is spread - there's no other way to describe it except as a massacre, Santiago said.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Castro to provide information about the police operation and scheduled a hearing with the state governor and the heads of the military and civil police next Monday in Rio.

The Senate's commission for human rights said it was asking for clarifications from the Rio state government. Meanwhile, Rio prosecutors requested that Castro provide detailed information about the operation and proof that there was no less harmful means of achieving its objectives.

And the federal public prosecutor's office asked the Forensic Medical Institute to ensure that autopsy reports contain full descriptions and photographic and radiographic documentation of all injuries.

Castro said on Tuesday that Rio was at war against narco-terrorism, a term that echoed the Trump administration in its campaign against drug smuggling in Latin America.

On Wednesday, Castro called the operation a success, apart from the deaths of the four police officers.

Rio's state government said that the suspects who had been killed had resisted police.

Rio has been the scene of lethal police raids for decades. In March 2005, some 29 people were killed in Rio's Baixada Fluminense region, while in May 2021, 28 were killed in the Jacarezinho favela.

But the scale and lethality of Tuesday's operation are unprecedented. Non-governmental organisations and the UN human rights body quickly raised concerns over the high number of reported fatalities and called for investigations.

We fully understand the challenges of having to deal with violent and well-organised groups such as Red Command, said UN Human Rights Spokesperson Marta Hurtado said.

But Brazil must break this cycle of extreme brutality and ensure that law enforcement operations comply with international standards regarding the use of force, she said, adding that the body was calling for full-fledged policing reform.