More than 130 killed: How did a Brazil raid on a Rio favela turn so deadly?

A state police operation targeting a major drug gang in Brazil has resulted in the deaths of 132 people in low-income neighbourhoods in Rio de Janeiro – the deadliest raid in the country’s history.

Authorities initially said fewer than half that number had been killed in the favelas – the Portuguese term for slum. Protests against excessive police force have since broken out and activists are calling for Rio’s governor to resign over what local people have described as a “slaughter”.
State police said the operation carried out on Tuesday had been planned for months. The “sting” aimed to drive suspects into a forested hillside where special operation units were waiting to ambush them.

The following day, dozens of favela residents gathered in front of the state government headquarters shouting “assassins!” just hours after family members laid dozens of bodies out on a street in one of the targeted areas.

Among those expressing shock about the death toll was President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. According to Brazil’s justice minister, Lula was “astonished” that the federal government had not been informed about or asked to cooperate in the operation beforehand.

What happened?
Arriving on foot and in armoured cars, police launched a predawn raid targeting the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) gang, one of Brazil’s oldest criminal organisations, in Rio’s northern neighbourhoods of Penha Complex and Alemao Complex.
The gang, which originated in Rio’s prisons in the 1970s, has expanded in recent years and now commands territory across Brazil, including in the Amazon. Its criminal activities include drug trafficking, arms trafficking and protection racketeering.

Tuesday’s assault involved 2,500 police and soldiers. Many were waiting in wooded areas – where most of the killings occurred – close to the targeted sites. Red Command fired back at the government forces, sparking scenes of chaos across the two neighbourhoods.

Schools in the affected areas were closed, a local university cancelled its classes and several roads were blocked off. Elsewhere, many shops in the two districts closed on Wednesday.

What was seized, and how many people were killed?
Rio state Governor Claudio Castro, a far-right ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro, said forensic work was still under way. For now, he maintained, the official death toll was 58, including four police officers.

However, the public defender’s office, which provides legal assistance to the poor, reported that the figure was actually 132.

After the raid, the state government said 118 weapons and more than a tonne of drugs were seized. On Wednesday, Castro called the operation a “success”. He spoke in a video on X and called the raid a “historic day in the fight against crime in Rio de Janeiro”.