May 07, 2021 Tatjana Muskiet
The United Nations human rights office has strongly criticised a police raid against suspected drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro, amid allegations of abuse and extrajudicial executions. The deadliest police operation in the city’s history has left 25 dead, including a police officer. Residents say police killed suspects who wanted to surrender and entered homes without a warrant. Police have denied any wrongdoing, saying officers acted in self-defence. Vast areas of Rio de Janeiro, one of Brazil’s most violent cities, are under the control of criminals, many of them linked to powerful drug-trafficking gangs. Security forces are often accused of disproportionate force during their anti-crime operations.Thursday’s raid in Jacarezinho, one of the city’s largest slums known as favelas, was carried out by about 200 police officers and an armoured helicopter with a sniper. The area is controlled by o
Police kill 25, draw ire in shoot-out in favela in Rio
DEADLY OPERATION: Police said that the people killed in the raid were ‘suspects,’ but rights groups said that authorities label anyone killed by police as ‘criminals’
AFP, RIO DE JANEIRO
A massive police operation against drug traffickers in a Brazilian favela on 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.
Bloody police raid in Brazil leaves at least 25 dead Credit:
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Police in a Rio de Janeiro slum engaged in an hourslong gunbattle Thursday targeting drug traffickers and leading to the death of at least 25 people, including one officer. The raid in the Rio de Janeiro Jacarezinho favela in the north of the city, which police authorities say was the result of a “long and detailed” investigation, targeted the Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, criminal organization.
Human rights activists accused the police of using excessive force, and called the raid one of the deadliest in Rio de Janeiro s history. Critics of the raid are also asking why the raid occured in the first place after a Supreme Court ban on law enforcement raids in the city during the pandemic.
At least 25 people were killed and another five injured on Thursday in an intense shootout in northern Rio de Janeiro between police and suspected drug traffickers.
According to the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police, one police officer died as a result of the shootout, while the other 24 people killed were allegedly members of a criminal organization that dominates the Jacarezinho favela.
The event occurred in the early hours of Thursday in Jacarezinho during a Civil Police operation against drug trafficking and organized crime in the area.
Audio and video pieces circulating on social media networks showed intense gunfights and gas bomb explosions in several parts of the favela, and images taken from helicopters showed armed people fleeing across the rooftops and terraces.