A massive police operation against drug traffickers in a Brazilian favela Thursday left 25 people dead, turning the impoverished Rio de Janeiro neighborhood into a battlefield and drawing condemnation from rights groups.
A policeman was among those killed in the early morning raid on Jacarezinho, on Rio’s north side, where residents awoke to explosions, heavy gunfire and helicopters overhead.
Police confirmed the toll, identifying the other 24 dead as “suspects”. They said all protocols had been followed before officers opened fire, but rights groups and academics cried foul.
“Who are the dead? Young black men. That’s why the police talk about ‘24 suspects.’ Being a young, black favela resident automatically makes you a suspect to the police. They just keep piling up bodies and saying, ‘They’re all criminals,’” said Silvia Ramos, head of the Security Observatory at Candido Mendes University.
“Is this the public security policy we want? Shootouts, killings and police massacres?” she told AFP.
Large groups of heavily armed police could be seen streaming into the favela as frightened residents tentatively went about their business once the gunfire died down, AFP journalists said.
Residents reported seeing numerous bodies being taken out in an armored police vehicle, a local community leader told AFP, asking that his name not be published for safety reasons.
“Unfortunately, there were many clashes in the area. There is nothing to celebrate with this toll,” one police official told a press conference, adding that the officer killed was shot in the head.
“This is one of the largest death tolls in a police operation in Rio, surpassing 19 at Complexo do Alemão slum in 2007, except we did not lose one of ours then,” police chief Ronaldo Oliveira told Reuters.
A 2005 raid in the Baixada Fluminense in Rio’s violent northern outskirts killed 29 people…..read more
Source: France24
