Protests erupt in Rio after Brazil’s deadliest police raid leaves 121 dead in favelas

Thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, demanding justice after Brazil’s deadliest-ever police operation left at least 121 people dead. Demonstrators are calling for an independent investigation into the killings and an end to security tactics that have turned poor neighbourhoods into “war zones.”

Massive police raid on Tuesday targeted the Complexo da Penha and Complexo do Alemão — sprawling favela areas in north Rio — and ended with more than a hundred bodies, including four police officers. Dozens of mutilated corpses were later dumped at the entrance of one favela, sparking outrage across Brazil and abroad.

Earlier, on Friday, crowds dressed in white gathered on Vila Cruzeiro’s football field, demanding the removal of Rio’s right-wing governor, Cláudio Castro, who ordered the offensive. Some protesters wore Brazil’s flag stained with red paint to symbolize the bloodshed.

“We don’t want a Rio de Janeiro of blood. We have to stop this blood that is being spilled,” said protester Raimunda Leone from the nearby Chapadão community. “No mother wants to see her son lying on the ground, riddled with bullets.”

Marching through bullet-scarred streets, protesters chanted “Favela Lives Matter” and carried banners against the violence. “All of us feel devastated,” said Jurema Werneck, director of Amnesty International Brazil. “Those who live in war zones will understand this pain, this despair and this revolt.”

Police officials defended the raid, calling it a response to the “expansionist fury” of the Red Command drug faction, which controls much of the area. Civil police chief Felipe Curi claimed residents had welcomed the operation and that most of the dead had criminal ties. He said the police “came within a whisker” of capturing a major crime boss.

But rights activists dismissed those claims, accusing authorities of carrying out a massacre in predominantly Black, low-income communities. “Their pain is my pain,” said Priscila Barros, a resident of Jacarezinho, holding a sign reading “Basta!” (Enough). Jacarezinho previously saw the deadliest raid in 2021, when 28 people were killed.

“I’d never seen this number of bodies at the same time, and I hope I never see it again,” said Werneck. “Cláudio Castro has blood on his hands — and this time he went beyond anything we could have imagined.”

Security experts have condemned the operation as a senseless show of force. Silvia Ramos, from Rio’s Centre for Studies on Public Security and Citizenship, called the crackdown “disastrous, tragic and savage — an international disgrace.”

With inputs from agencies.