Brazil’s deadliest police operation leaves over 130 dead in Rio de Janeiro

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At least 130 people died during what authorities described as Brazil’s most lethal police operation targeting drug gangs, carried out this week in Rio de Janeiro, the Guardian reported.

For more than two months, authorities planned raids targeting members of the Comando Vermelho gang, according to Rio state security chief Victor Santos. He said the operation resulted in a high number of deaths, which was expected but not wanted, and that all claims of police misconduct would be investigated.

Four police officers were among the dead.

Residents in the Penha neighborhood reported recovering bodies from nearby forests and placing them along a main street as an act of protest. Human rights lawyers and relatives of those who died accused police of extrajudicial actions, allegations authorities have denied.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned drug-related violence and urged a coordinated strategy that targets organized crime without endangering civilians or police. The United Nations human rights office called for an independent investigation, warning of a pattern of excessively lethal raids in Brazil’s poorest communities.

The operation, which the state government described as its largest-ever campaign against Rio’s drug gangs, led to 113 suspects being arrested and 118 firearms seized, officials said.