At least 64 people were killed and 81 arrested when 2,500 heavily armed police and soldiers stormed Rio de Janeiro’s favelas in the city’s largest ever anti-gang operation.
Shooting continued for hours on Tuesday in the Alemão and Penha complexes, the strongholds of the powerful Red Command (Comando Vermelho) gang.
The conflict has left “bodies scattered across the streets,” according to a community leader cited by O Globo.
Governor Cláudio Castro said the city was “at war” and called it “the largest operation in the history of Rio de Janeiro.”
Among the dead were four police officers, authorities confirmed.
“This is no longer a common crime, it is narcoterrorism,” Castro said in a video on social media, praising the seizure of dozens of rifles, drones and a “large amount of drugs.”
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The raid, supposedly planned for more than a year, was aimed at crushing the territorial expansion of the Red Command.
The gang, Brazil’s oldest criminal faction, emerged from Rio’s prisons during the military dictatorship and now runs major drug trafficking and extortion networks throughout South America.
Footage showed armored vehicles moving through narrow alleys as gunshots rang out and thick black smoke rose from burning barricades.
Local media said gang members used drones to drop explosives on police.
Authorities said the operation sought to execute 250 arrest and search warrants, but the clashes paralyzed much of northern Rio.
More than 40 schools were closed, bus routes were suspended and residents were urged to stay home.
“This is the magnitude of the challenge we face,” Castro said, adding that security forces would remain deployed “in the fight against crime.”
Human rights groups condemned the bloodshed.
The U.N. Human Rights Office said it was “horrified” by the violence and warned that it “deepens the trend of extreme lethal consequences of police operations in Brazil’s marginalized communities.”
César Muñoz of Human Rights Watch called the day’s events “an enormous tragedy” and “a disaster.”
“The prosecution must open its own investigations and clarify the circumstances of each death,” he said.
Residents described waking up to intense gunshots before dawn.
Glória Alves, 65, who lives in the Palmeiras area of Alemão, said: “There was a barrage of shots, a lot of shots. It was horrible.”
Activists accused the government of turning Rio’s poor neighborhoods into war zones.
“This is not a public security policy. It is a policy of extermination,” stated the Marielle Franco Institute.
Governor Castro’s administration has taken an increasingly tough line against organized crime, but critics say such raids fail to dismantle drug trafficking networks.
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“The difference with today’s operation is the magnitude of the victims. These are war figures,” said public security expert Luis Flávio Sapori.
The clashes came just days before Rio hosts the C40 World Mayors Summit and Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, global events linked to the upcoming COP30 climate summit in Brazil.
