Bodies line Rio Street, bringing death toll from police raids to 132

• Operation targeted drug gang Comando Vermelho.
• Over 70 bodies were recovered by local residents.
• The UN is calling for an investigation into the actions of the Brazilian police.

The deadliest police operation in Brazil’s history killed at least 132 people, officials said Wednesday, after Rio de Janeiro residents lined a street with dozens of bodies collected overnight, a week before global climate events hit the city.

The tally from Rio’s public defender’s office was more than double the death toll announced on Tuesday, when state authorities reported at least 64 dead, including four police officers. The raids targeted a major drug gang, the state government said.

Rio Governor Claudio Castro said the initial tally had counted only bodies processed at the public morgue.

Penha residents who went searching for missing relatives had recovered many of the bodies from a wooded area behind their neighborhood, according to people at the scene, where more than 70 bodies were lined up in the middle of the road.

“I just want to take my son out of here and bury him,” said Tawa Brito, the mother of one of those killed, surrounded by weeping mourners and onlookers on either side of the long line of bodies, some of which were covered with sheets or bags.

Governor Castro said he was certain those killed in the operation were criminals, as much of the shooting was in a wooded area. “I don’t think anyone would be walking in the woods on the day of the crash,” he told reporters.

“The only real victims were the police officers,” he said.

The police operation came days before Rio hosts global events related to the United Nations climate summit, known as COP30, including the C40 global summit of mayors to tackle climate change and Britain’s Prince William Earthshot Prize.

Rio has hosted many global events over the past decade, including the 2016 Olympics, the 2024 G20 Summit and the BRICS summit in July, without violence on the scale seen on Tuesday.

The Rio state government said the operation was the largest ever to target the Comando Vermelho gang, which controls the drug trade in many favelas – poor and densely populated settlements that weave the city’s hilly terrain.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who landed in Brasilia late Tuesday from a trip to Malaysia, has yet to comment on the raids.

He met with Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and cabinet members on Wednesday to discuss the matter, his office said. Lula’s justice minister said on Tuesday that the government had not received any requests for support from state authorities.

Several civil society groups criticized the heavy casualties of the military-style raid. The UN human rights office said it adds to a trend of extreme deadly police raids on Brazil’s marginalized communities.

“We remind the authorities of their obligations under international human rights law and call for prompt and effective investigations,” it said in a statement.