• UN chief ‘greatly concerned’ by number of casualties
• President Lula ‘horrified’ by death toll

RIO DE JANEIRO/UNITED NATIONS: The deadliest police operation in Brazil’s history killed at least 132 people, public defenders said on Wednesday, as Rio de Janeiro residents lined a street with dozens of corpses found overnight, a week ahead of global climate events in the city.

State police said the raids targeting a major drug gang the day before the global climate events in the city had been planned exhaustively for more than two months, designed to drive suspects into a hillside where a special operations unit was waiting in ambush.

“The elevated lethality of the operation was expected but not desired,” Victor Santos, head of security for Rio state, told a news conference. Rio police officials confirmed 119 deaths so far, including four police officers.

Santos said there was no connection to global events Rio will host next week related to the United Nations COP30 climate summit, including the C40 global summit of mayors tackling climate change and British Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.

Rio has hosted several 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 city’s most deadly police raid before Tuesday was a 2021 raid that left 28 people dead in the Jacarezinho neighborhood. In 1992, 111 were killed when Sao Paulo police stormed the Carandiru Penitentiary to put down a prison rebellion.

Residents of the Penha neighborhood in Rio gathered dozens of corpses from the surrounding forest overnight and lined up more than 70 of the bodies in the middle of a main street. “I just want to take my son out of here and bury him,” said Taua Brito, a mother of one of those killed, surrounded by weeping mourners and onlookers on either side of the long row of bodies, some of which were covered with sheets or bags.

Guterres concerned over casualties

UN chief Antonio Guterres is “greatly concerned” by the number of casualties from a massive Brazilian police raid on Rio drug gangs, which left scores dead, his spokesman said Wednesday.

“He stresses that the use of force in police operations must adhere to international human rights law and standards, and urges the authorities to undertake a prompt investigation,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2025