Bloody operation against drug trafficking in a favela in Rio de Janeiro: at least 12 dead

Even 12 massacres This is the balance of an operation by Brazilian anti-drug trafficking forces in a favela in Rio de Janeiro. The victims were 11 alleged criminals and a neighbor, who was hit by a stray bullet.

This is the second police raid with a high number of casualties so far this year Cruzeiro Villaa favela in the north where, according to police hiding the leaders of the “Comando Vermelho”. (red command), drug gang that has been sowing havoc since the late 1970s.

Ang Military Police (PM) De Rio made sure it was shot at of criminals in the upper part of the favela as he prepares to begin the operation.

“The criminal group controlling the region is usually conducting raids in other areas and we have signs that this group will move to the city,” said Uirá Ferreira, commander of Rio PM’s Special Operations Battalion (BOPE). , at a press conference., which acted in conjunction with the Federal Police and Federal Highway Police (PRF).

“It has an expansion policy, an ideology of war, of confrontation. Not only against the police forces, but also against other criminal groups, ”said Military Police spokesman Ivan Blaz.

According to Blaz, Comando Vermelho has already begun protect drug traffickers from other states who “ordered” from Rio de Janeiro “to commit homicides in other regions” of the country and who allegedly hid in Vila Cruzeiro, inside the Penha Complex.

In the confrontation, according to police, 11 criminals were killed and a neighbor from the neighborhood near Vila Cruzeiro was hit by a stray bullet.

The others five people were injuredaccording to the latest police balance, which does not exclude new victims, because the hunt took place in an area of ​​closed vegetation and new bodies can be found.

Agents seized 13 rifles, 12 grenades, four pistols and an unspecified amount of drugs, in addition to 20 motorcycles and 20 vehicles allegedly belonging to the gang.

Authorities reported that at least 19 schools in the area were closed due to intense hunting, which according to neighbors began early in the morning. At noon gunshots and explosions could still be heard near the favela, according to a photographer from the AFP agency.

Comando Vermelho is responsible for “more than 80% of armed clashes in Rio,” according to Ivan Blaz, spokesman for the Rio de Janeiro Military Police.

In front of the door of Getulio Vargas hospital, five minutes from the favela, a dozen neighbors and relatives of the deceased, mostly women, were seeking information on their loved ones on Tuesday. Desperate, some cried and cried.

“These police operations in the favelas put the lives of the entire population in danger, impede the operation of public and commercial services (…) and do not solve any security problem,” said Guilherme Pimentel, a consultant of the Ombudsman, to the AFP. Public of Rio de Janeiro, providing legal assistance to the families of the deceased.

“Operations like this will never be tolerated in the affluent neighborhoods of the city, it is necessary that they are also not tolerated in favelas,” he added.

Human Rights Watch complained of the deaths and requested a “immediate” and “thorough” investigation into the incident. “Rio immediately needs a new public security policy that is not the bullet,” the organization said.

Vila Cruzeiro, one of the favelas that make up the Complexo da Penha, was the scene in February of another similar operation that killed eight alleged criminals.

It was also there that traffickers tortured and killed Brazilian journalist Tim Lopes in 2002 while reporting on child abuse in the favela.

This month, Rio celebrated one year of the deadliest police operation in its history in Jacarezinho, a favela eight kilometers from Vila Cruzeiro.

There, 28 people were killed in a raid against drug trafficking on May 6, 2021.

Last year, 1,356 people died at the hands of police forces, while across Brazil the number was 6,133, according to the Monitor da Violencia project.

Rio, a city with a chronic problem of police violence, plans to put about 8,000 cameras on the uniforms of its officers, a move that experts say is showing encouraging results in other states. in Brazil.

The start of the project, originally scheduled for May, was pushed back to June, according to the local newspaper.

Source: AFP and EFE

DD