Brazilian officials revealed on October 29 that Rio de Janeiro police launched a massive assault on a local low-income community drug trafficking gang that killed at least 119 people.

Initially, authorities said about 2,500 police and soldiers were involved in raids Tuesday in the Penha and Complexo de Alemao caves, killing 60 suspects.

Rio State Police Chief Felipe Curry said at a press conference that the bodies of more suspects were found in a wood, and these suspects wore camouflage uniforms when confronting security forces. He also said that local residents took clothes and equipment from the body, which will be investigated as evidence of tampering.

¡°When they were in the woods, they wore clothes, jackets, and weapons, but now many of them wore only underwear or shorts, without any equipment, as if they had changed clothes from somewhere,¡± said Curry.

Early Wednesday, residents surrounded many bodies collected on trucks and displayed in the main square near Pena. Residents shouted slogans such as "Holocaust" and "Justice" before the forensic doctor arrived to retrieve the remains.

"They could put these people in jail. Why kill them like this? Many of them were still alive and crying for help," Elizangela Silva Santos, a 50-year-old resident, said at the gathering in Peña. "Yes, they are drug dealers, but they are also human beings."

Curry said that the total number of arrested suspects reached 113, higher than the previously mentioned 81. About 90 rifles and more than a ton of drugs were seized during the operation, the state government said.

Police and soldiers took helicopters, armored vehicles, and launched raids on foot, targeting Red Command gangs. The move drew shootings and other acts of retaliation by gang members, and the city was thrown into chaos Tuesday. Schools in the affected areas were closed, classes were cancelled at a local university and roads were blocked by buses used as roadblocks.

Many of the stores in Penya remained closed on Wednesday morning, local activist Raúl Santiago said he was one of the team members who found about 15 bodies before dawn.

"What we're seeing are people being executed: shot in the back, shot in the head, stabbed, and people tied up. This level of brutality, this pervasive hatred, there's no other word to describe it than'massacre, '" Santiago said.

Rio governor Claudio Castro said on Tuesday that Rio is fighting ¡°drug terrorism,¡± in line with the Trump administration¡¯s statement in the Latin American drug smuggling campaign.

On Wednesday, Castro called the operation "successful", but four policemen died.

The state government of Rio de Janeiro said that the slain suspect resisted the police.

For decades, Rio de Janeiro has been the scene of deadly police raids.In March 2005, about 29 people were killed in Rio de Janeiro's Sadar-Frominance district; and in May 2021, 28 people were killed in the jacareguinean cave.

But on Tuesday, the scale and destruction of the operation were unprecedented.NGOs and UN human rights agencies quickly expressed concern about the large number of deaths and called for an investigation.

¡°We fully understand that dealing with violent and tightly organized groups like the Red Command is facing a huge challenge,¡± said UN human rights spokeswoman Marta Ultado.

But she also said Brazil must "break this cycle of extreme brutality and ensure that law enforcement actions comply with international standards regarding the use of force," adding that the agency called for comprehensive policing reform.

The stated goals of the operation are to capture gang leaders and limit the territorial expansion of the Red Command gang, which has strengthened its control of slums in recent years.

Gang members allegedly used at least one drone to target police. The Rio de Janeiro state government shared a video on Platform X that appeared to show a drone firing bullets from the air.

Governor Castro, from the conservative opposition Liberal Party, said on Tuesday that Rio was ¡°isolated and helpless in this war,¡± saying the federal government should provide more support to combat crime, which is clearly an accusation of the leftist president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva¡¯s government.

His remarks were questioned by the Ministry of Justice, which said it had responded to the Rio state government's request to deploy national forces in the state and resumed 11 garrisons.

Glacy Hoffman, Lula's government liaison with Parliament, agreed that more coordinated action was needed, but pointed to the recent crackdown on money laundering as an example of the federal government's action to combat organized crime.

Lula's chief of staff, Rui Costa, requested an emergency meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday with local authorities and Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski.

In recent years, criminal gangs have been expanding their influence all over Brazil, even extending to the Amazon rainforest.

Roberto Ujoya, from the think-tank of the Brazilian Public Security Forum, said that despite such operations, criminal gangs are still growing, indicating inefficiency.

¡°Killing more than 100 people like this doesn¡¯t stop the expansion of the Red Command, the dead will soon be replaced by others,¡± Ujoya said.

Felipe dos Anjos, secretary-general of the slum rights group FAFERJ, expressed the same view.

¡°Around 30 days later, organized crime will rally in the area and continue to do what they¡¯ve always done: trafficking drugs, stealing goods, collecting protection fees,¡± he said.

"In terms of the actual effects of such actions on people and society, it has almost no effect." He added.

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