A massive police raid on a drug gang embedded in low-income neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro that left at least 119 people dead drew protests for excessive force on Wednesday and calls for the Rio’s governor to resign.
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Dozens of favela residents gathered in front of the state’s government headquarters shouting “assassins!” and waving Brazilian flags stained with red paint, a day after Rio’s deadliest raid and hours after families and residents laid dozens of dead bodies on a street in one of the targeted communities to show the magnitude of the operation.
Questions quickly arose about the death count and the state of the bodies, with reports of disfigurement and knife wounds. Brazil’s Supreme Court, prosecutors and lawmakers asked Castro to provide detailed information about the operation.
“This was a massacre,” said Barbara Barbosa, a domestic worker from the Penha complex of favelas, one of the two huge communities targeted in the police operation. She said her son was killed in a prior operation in Penha.
“Do we have a death sentence? Stop killing us,” said activist Rute Sales, 56.
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