RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Families lined up at a morgue on Thursday in Rio de Janeiro to identify relatives killed in Brazil’s deadliest ever police raids, and funerals began to take place for four police officers who died taking part in the operation.
Authorities have said at least 121 people, including the officers, died in the Tuesday raids targeting the Comando Vermelho gang that controls the drug trade in several favelas – poor, densely populated neighborhoods woven through the city’s hilly terrain.
Many of the corpses of those killed were retrieved by locals from the forested area near the Penha favela on Tuesday night.
On Thursday morning, more than 100 bodies were still awaiting autopsies or identification at a local morgue. Relatives stood outside, gazing through the fence and waiting for updates.
Some locals said they had found corpses with bound limbs and signs of torture, stirring protests and political backlash in a country where police killed over 6,000 people last year, according to government data.
Victor Santos, Rio state security secretary, said on Thursday that “any misconduct that may have occurred, which I believe did not happen, will be investigated.”
Rio de Janeiro Governor Claudio Castro called the operation a success and said the “only real victims” were the slain officers. All the others killed were criminals, he said.
Castro was scheduled to meet on Thursday with several right-leaning state governors, who traveled to Rio to show support.
LULA VOWS TO COMBAT ORGANIZED CRIME
A group of left-wing lawmakers led by Congresswoman Taliria Petrone visited the Penha neighborhood to meet and talk to locals.
“We will closely monitor the situation after yet another massacre in the favelas,” Petrone said on social media, calling for “truth, justice and accountability in the face of another operation marked by human rights violations.”
United Nations officials have criticized the heavy casualties of the military-style operation and said there should be an investigation.
Santos said there was no connection between the raids and the global events Rio will host next week tied to the UN’s COP30 climate negotiations, including the C40 summit of mayors addressing global warming and Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.
Brazil’s federal government was caught offguard by the operation by Rio state police, Justice Ricardo Lewandowski told journalists on Wednesday.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for coordinated work that targets the gangs without putting police and innocent families at risk.
On Thursday, he signed into law a bill aimed at increasing protection for public officials involved in fighting organized crime.
“The Brazilian government does not tolerate criminal organizations and acts to combat them with ever greater vigor,” he wrote on social media.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier, Janaina Quinet and Leonardo Benassatto; Writing by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Brad Haynes and Rosalba O’Brien)
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