“The President was appalled by the number of fatalities and also surprised that an operation of this magnitude was launched without the knowledge of the federal government, without any possibility of the federal government participating in any way,” said Ricardo Lewandowski.
Lula da Silva has not yet commented publicly on the case because, when the operation took place, he was on a plane returning from a week-long official trip to Asia.
The Rio de Janeiro Public Defender’s Office said that 132 people had died after around 60 bodies were found on Wednesday, following the mega-operation launched on Tuesday in the city’s favelas against the Comando Vermelho drug and arms trafficking gang.
The Public Defender’s Office (the Brazilian equivalent of the Portuguese legal aid system), responsible for providing free legal assistance, released the new death toll after residents of the affected neighbourhoods searched for missing relatives and began gathering dozens of bodies in a square.
Officials from the organisation have been monitoring the search in Complexo da Penha, one of the focal points of the operation, since dawn today and are present at the forensic institutes responsible for identifying the bodies, according to a statement.
In addition, the Public Defender’s Office said it had collected testimonies from residents and relatives of the victims to “contribute to the necessary institutional response to unprecedented state violence.”
On the other hand, the Rio de Janeiro local government continues to maintain the official death toll at 64, including four police officers, but admits that the number may be higher. According to official data, 81 alleged members of the criminal organisation were arrested, 93 rifles and “huge” quantities of drugs were seized.
At a press conference, the governor of Rio de Janeiro argued that the bodies found today are those of criminals.
The conflict took place entirely in the bush area. I don’t believe anyone was walking in the bush on the day of the conflict. We can safely classify them as criminals, and if there is any error, it will be negligible. The criterion we can safely use is that they are criminals because, in the planning, the conflict was in areas that would not affect the population,” said Cláudio Castro.
The bodies found by family members, all of them men, were lined up side by side on the ground in a square in Penha, in full view of neighbours, according to information released by the local press.
On Tuesday, around 2,500 police officers carried out a large-scale operation in the communities that make up the Penha and Alemão slum complexes, aimed at arresting the leaders of the organisation. In retaliation, members of the Brazilian criminal group Comando Vermelho blocked several major roads in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, partially paralysing the city.
Non-governmental organisations and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have already criticised the brutality of the operation.
‘We are appalled by the ongoing police operation in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, which, according to reports, has already resulted in the deaths of more than 60 people, including four police officers,’’ wrote OHCHR on its official account on the X platform.
Around 30 human rights organisations have signed a statement saying that security in Rio de Janeiro “cannot be achieved through bloodshed” and that the operation, in addition to exposing “the failure and structural violence of security policy”, is plunging the city “into a state of terror”.
The Comando Vermelho is mainly involved in drug and arms trafficking, and its centre of operations is located in the state of Rio de Janeiro, where it controls some communities in the city, although it has a presence in much of the country, especially in the Amazon region.
The organisation was founded in the 1980s, when the military dictatorship grouped together common criminals and members of politically and even militarily trained guerrilla groups in the same prisons.
Platform with Lusa
