Bloody police strike in Brazil.

At least 25 people were killed Thursday, May 6, in a favela in Rio de Janeiro during an anti-drug operation, the deadliest in the history of the Brazilian metropolis and the state of which it is the capital, reported the police. 

The Jacarezinho favela in northern Rio turned into a battlefield at dawn on Thursday.

Residents reported seeing corpses lying in alleys in pools of blood, and numerous bodies loaded into an armored police vehicle, an official from a local community told AFP, who asked. for security reasons that his name is not published. 

Historical murderous record

The police confirmed the death of "24 suspects" and of a policeman, killed by a bullet in the head at the very beginning of the intervention, the highest death toll in the history of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Janeiro for an anti-drug operation. 

“Unfortunately, a lot of clashes broke out in the community. There is nothing to celebrate about this record,” a police official said at a press conference.

He claimed that "all protocols" were followed by the police to open fire. 

But Silvia Ramos, coordinator of the NGO Network of public security observatories, denounced "a badly planned operation which, after the death of a police officer, turned into a revenge operation". 

"You just have to be black and live in a favela to become a suspect"

"Who are the dead? Young blacks. And that's why the police talk about 24 suspects. You just need to be black and live in a favela to become a suspect," she told the 'AFP. 

"For a legal operation, that of Jacarezinho breaks all records" of victims, she added, making the comparison with two massacres committed for revenge by off-duty police officers in other neighborhoods in 1993 (22 dead) and in 2005 (31 dead). 

According to the police, the operation was carried out against drug traffickers accused of recruiting minors in Jacarezinho, considered a base of Comando Vermelho (the "Red Commando"), the largest drug trafficking gang in Rio de Janeiro. . 

"These criminals commit acts such as drug trafficking, theft of goods, assaults on pedestrians, homicides and attacking subway trains," police said in a statement. 

A muscular operation

A resident of the neighborhood told AFP that she saw a young man being shot inside her house, where he had taken refuge after being injured. 

"The boy arrived shot and wounded," testified this resident.

"The police saw blood and came in shouting: where is he? Where is he? I just had time to lead my children to the back while they killed him in the bedroom," she added. 

At least two people were also injured as they traveled on the skytrain, caught in crossfire, according to media which showed images of two victims receiving treatment on a station platform. 

Frightened, the inhabitants of the favela tried as best they could to resume their occupations after the end of the shootings, according to AFP journalists on the spot. 

The operation took place despite a Supreme Court ruling prohibiting police from conducting raids in impoverished Brazil's favelas during the coronavirus pandemic, except in "absolutely exceptional circumstances." 

The organization Human Rights Watch demanded that "the police preserve the scene of the facts, without touching the bodies, until the end of the investigations", considering that "serious flaws" had been observed in the investigations for homicide involving the police of Rio in the past. 

"Unacceptable" practices

The Igarapé Institute, which specializes in security and development issues, deemed "unacceptable that the police (...) continue to rely on death as the main strategy, especially in vulnerable areas".

According to this institute, the Rio police "are responsible for the deaths of 453 people between January and March of this year".  

Police said the operation followed an investigation that led to a warrant to wiretap suspects' communications and identify 21 gang members "tasked with ensuring territorial domination using handguns. fire". 

The group "had set up a military-like structure with hundreds of 'soldiers' equipped with rifles, pistols, grenades, bulletproof vests, camouflage uniforms and other military accessories," the group said. police. 

With AFP

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