Rio police raid on drug gang kills 119 amid fierce | Political News

At least 119 people had been killed during a police raid and clashes with a drug gang working in low-income neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, officers reported on Wednesday. This announcement got here a day after the intensive operation confronted criticism for allegedly utilizing extreme drive.

The death toll contains 115 suspects and 4 police officers, marking an increase from the initial report, which said that 60 suspects had died during Tuesday’s raid involving roughly 2,500 police and troopers in the favelas of Penha and Complexo de Alemão.

Felipe Curi, a Rio state police secretary, said at a news convention that further our bodies had been found in a wooded space, where the suspects had reportedly worn camouflage while partaking in battle with security forces.

“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.

Residents in the Penha neighborhood expressed their outrage on Wednesday as they gathered around the our bodies displayed in vans at the main sq., chanting “massacre” and “justice” while ready for forensic authorities to arrive.

Rio state police secretary Felipe Curi reported that local residents had eliminated clothes and gear from the our bodies, an act he described as tampering with evidence, which might be subject to investigation.

Additionally, Curi up to date the quantity of arrests to 113 suspects, which is an increase from the beforehand reported 81.

The police and troopers had launched a vital operation focusing on the Red Command gang, deploying helicopters, armored automobiles, and ground models. As a consequence of the raid, colleges in the neighborhood had been closed, courses at a local college had been canceled, and roads had been obstructed utilizing buses as makeshift barricades.

Local activist Raull Santiago, told AP, that he was half of a crew in Penha that discovered about 15 our bodies before daybreak.

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“We saw executed people: shot in the back, shots to the head, stab wounds, people tied up. This level of brutality, the hatred spread – there’s no other way to describe it except as a massacre,” Santiago told AP.

Claudio Castro, Rio state Gov., said on Tuesday that Rio was at battle against “narco-terrorism,” a time period that echoed the Trump administration in its marketing campaign against drug smuggling in Latin America.

The metropolis has been the scene of deadly police raids for many years.

In March 2005, some 29 people had been killed in Rio’s Baixada Fluminense area, while in May 2021, 28 had been killed in the Jacarezinho favela. However, the size and casualties of Tuesday’s operation are unprecedented. The U.N. human rights physique and NGOs called for investigations as they raised issues (*119*) the high quantity of reported fatalities.