At least 119 dead in Brazil police raid, bodies line streets as locals mourn

In the Penha neighbourhood, a low-income area located in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro, weeping and mourning residents surrounded the bodies of the dead.

A police raid that led to violent clashes with a gang in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, resulted in at least 119 deaths, public defenders said on Wednesday, a day after the government ordered the operation.

According to Reuters, state police said the raids had been exhaustively planned for more than two months and were designed to push gang suspects operating in the Complexo da Penha favela into nearby hillside areas, where a special operations unit stood waiting to ambush the alleged assailants.

Rio police officials confirmed 119 deaths so far, including 115 suspects and four police officers, almost double the figure authorities gave one day prior. On Tuesday, the force said about 2,500 police and soldiers killed 60 suspected gang members.

Police spokesman Felipe Curi said additional bodies were retrieved from a forest close to the raided neighbourhoods, alleging that residents had removed camouflage equipment and clothing worn by the deceased gang suspects found in the woods.

Their alleged actions will be investigated as evidence tampering, he added.

On Wednesday, in the Penha neighbourhood, a low-income area located in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro, residents surrounded the bodies of the dead, which had been collected in trucks and displayed in a central square.

They shouted “massacre” and “justice” before forensic teams came to retrieve the bodies, The Associated Press reported.

Rio state officials say the use of extreme force and the violent nature of the raid did not come as a surprise to authorities.