RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Rio de Janeiro authorities said on Friday they had identified most of those killed in the deadliest police operation in Brazil's history, as protesters denounced the high number of casualties in the military-style raids.
The operation on Tuesday targeted the Comando Vermelho gang that controls the drug trade in several favelas - poor, densely populated neighborhoods woven through the city's hilly terrain. The raids killed 121 people, including four police officers.
Felipe Curi, secretary of Rio's civil police, told reporters that by Friday morning, 99 of the dead had been identified. Of those, 42 had outstanding arrest warrants and 78 had prior criminal records, he said.
State officials have been describing the operation as a success, with Governor Claudio Castro saying the "only real victims" were the slain officers as he claimed that all the others killed were criminals.
But the high death toll has drawn criticism from United Nations officials and security specialists. "These acts may amount to unlawful killings and must all be investigated promptly, independently, and thoroughly," U.N. experts said.
PROTESTS ERUPT
Left-leaning social movements, including labor unions and human rights groups, gathered on Friday in the Penha favela complex, where the raids took place earlier this week, demanding an end to "military incursions" into favelas and accountability for the victims.
At the site, organizers handed out shirts with slogans such as "Stop killing us" and "Black lives matter".
At the protest, Rio councilwoman Monica Benicio said that what happened could not be explained as something normal.
"This is not a public security policy; it is extermination, a massacre," said Benicio, widow of former councilwoman Marielle Franco who was murdered by former police officers in 2018.
One protester shouted: "Everyone's blood is red. The only difference is that we live in a favela."
POLITICAL BALANCE
A public opinion survey by AtlasIntel published on Friday showed that more than half of Brazilians, 55%, approved of the operation, with support rising to 62% in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Favela residents also overwhelmingly backed the raids, the pollster said.
The figures underscore a complex political landscape in a country where violence remains a major public concern but police killings have raised the alarm among human rights advocates.
Rio security officials continued to defend the operation. "We acted in the most transparent way possible. It was a legitimate action by the state after a year of investigations," Curi said. "We have nothing to hide."
Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose administration said it was caught off guard by the operation by Rio state police, called for coordinated work that targets the gangs without putting police and bystanders at risk.
"Beyond the territorial aspect and serving arrest warrants, which is important, if we don't suffocate the financing of organized crime, this won't work," Finance Minister Fernando Haddad told journalists on Friday.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier and Fabio Teixeira in Rio de Janeiro; Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva; Writing by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Lucinda Elliott, Richard Chang and Chizu Nomiyama )
