By Janaina Quinet and Rodrigo Viga Gaier

Item 1 of 5 Warning Graphic Content: A mourner kisses a covered body, the day after a deadly police operation in Rio de Janeiro. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

[1/5] Warning Graphic Content: A mourner kisses a covered body, the day after a deadly police operation in Rio de Janeiro. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 29 (Reuters) – The deadliest police operation in Brazil’s history killed at least 119 people, authorities said on Wednesday, as Rio de Janeiro residents lined a street with dozens of corpses found overnight, a week ahead of global climate events in the city.

State police said the raids targeting a major drug gang had been planned exhaustively for more than two months, designed to drive suspects into a forested hillside where a special operations unit was waiting in ambush.

“The elevated lethality of the operation was expected but not desired,” Victor Santos, head of security for Rio state, told a news conference.

Rio police confirmed 119 deaths so far, including four officers. Public defenders said the final count would rise to at least 132.

Santos said there was no connection between the violence and the global events Rio will host next week related to the United Nations COP30 climate negotiations, including the C40 summit of mayors addressing global warming and Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.

Residents of the Penha neighborhood in Rio gathered dozens of corpses from the surrounding forest overnight and lined up more than 70 of the bodies in the middle of a main street.

“I just want to take my son out of here and bury him,” said Taua Brito, a mother of one of those killed, surrounded by weeping mourners and onlookers on either side of the long row of bodies, some of which were covered with sheets or bags.

A motorcycle caravan set off from the neighborhood in the afternoon to protest the police violence outside the governor’s palace, where demonstrators gathered waving Brazilian flags stained with red palm marks.

The city’s most deadly police raid before Tuesday was a 2021 raid that left 28 people dead in the Jacarezinho neighborhood. In 1992, 111 prisoners died when Sao Paulo police stormed the Carandiru Penitentiary to put down a rebellion.

UN URGES INVESTIGATION

UN officials and security experts criticized the heavy casualties of the military-style operation. The United Nations Human Rights office said the killings add to a trend of extremely lethal police raids in Brazil’s marginalized communities.

“We remind authorities of their obligations under international human rights law, and urge prompt and effective investigations,” the agency said in a statement.

Relatives of the fallen described evidence of summary executions, including bound limbs, knife wounds and gunshots to the face and neck.

“Several families reported signs of torture on the victims’ bodies,” said Guilherme Pimentel, a human rights lawyer working with families of the deceased at Rio’s police morgue.

Rio Governor Claudio Castro said he was certain those killed in the operation were criminals firing guns from the forest.

“I don’t think anyone would be walking in the forest on the day of the conflict,” he told reporters, calling the raids an effort to combat “narcoterrorism.”

“The only real victims were the police officers,” he said.

The Rio state government said the operation was its largest ever to target the Comando Vermelho gang, which controls the drug trade in several favelas – poor and densely populated settlements woven through the city’s hilly oceanside terrain.

Police said they had arrested 113 suspects in the operation and seized 118 firearms.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was surprised to learn Rio police had launched an “extremely bloody, violent” operation without notifying or involving the federal government, Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski told journalists.

The minister said he would meet with Rio’s governor and could increase the number of federal security officials there.

Lula, who returned to Brasilia late on Tuesday from a trip to Malaysia, met with Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and cabinet members on Wednesday to discuss the matter, his office said.

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