Another day of mourning in Rio de Janeiro.

At least twenty-two people were killed on Tuesday, May 24, during a new bloody police operation in the Brazilian favela of Vila Cruzeiro.

Police said at least eleven victims were "suspects" and a favela resident was hit by a stray bullet.

The military police, who frequently carry out this kind of morning operations in the favelas of Rio against drug traffickers, claim to have been greeted by gunfire as they began an operation intended to "locate and capture hidden criminals" in Vila Cruzeiro.

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"It was an operation planned for weeks, but we identified movements of criminals during the night and we decided to intervene", explained Colonel Luiz Henrique Marinho Pires, who specified that the suspects were preparing to flee to another favela.

He also revealed that a helicopter used by the police during the operation had been hit by several bullets.

The operation, which began around 4 a.m. (9 a.m. in Paris), particularly targeted the "Comando Vermelho" ("Red Commando") on Tuesday, one of the main criminal factions in Brazil, "responsible for more than 80 % of shootings in Rio," a police spokesperson told TV Globo.

Thirteen assault rifles, four pistols, twenty motorcycles and ten cars were seized during the operation, but the police did not report any arrests.

One of the deadliest fonts in the world

During these muscular operations of the military police of Rio, residents and activists of associations often denounce blunders or extrajudicial executions of suspects, abuses most of the time unpunished.

In May 2021, a police operation in the favela of Jacarezinho, about 10 km from Vila Cruzeiro, left 28 dead, including a police officer, the heaviest toll in the history of the city.

"These operations in the favelas endanger the entire population and prevent the functioning of public services. We know that they would never be tolerated in chic neighborhoods", explains to AFP Guilherme Pimentel, auditor of Public Defense, who provides legal assistance to the less fortunate.

The Brazilian police are one of those who kill the most in the world, with more than 6,100 deaths in 2021, or 17 per day on average.

Police officers in Rio were supposed to wear body cameras on their uniforms starting this May, but the use of the equipment has been postponed due to delivery delays, according to local press.

Beyond the use of cameras, security experts advocate abandoning the logic of permanent confrontation in the fight against drug trafficking, to instead attack the financial resources of criminal factions.

With AFP

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