At least 132 people were killed in a single police operation in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, according to the city’s public defender’s office, which made the toll public a day later as grieving residents laid dozens of bodies in a square in the northern neighbourhood of Penha.
The raid swept through the favelas of Alemão and Penha, strongholds of the Red Command gang, in the north of the city. It now stands as the deadliest police operation Rio has seen in decades of attempts to contain the gangs that control many of its poorer neighbourhoods.
The detail that matters is the gap between the official and reported figures. Rio state Governor Cláudio Castro said forensic work was continuing, and that the figure he had been given was 58 dead, though it was “certain to change.” Four police officers were among those killed in the operation, which authorities said had been two months in the planning.
Residents described the scenes as “war-like,” with gun battles between officers and armed men and buses set alight to form barricades. Police said gang members used drones to drop explosives on officers as they moved through the neighbourhoods. “This is how the Rio police are treated by criminals: with bombs dropped by drones,” Governor Castro said, adding that “This is not ordinary crime, but narco-terrorism.”
The scale of the toll drew swift reaction. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was “astonished,” according to Brazil’s justice minister, and surprised that the federal government had not been told beforehand. The United Nations human rights office said it was “horrified” by the operation.
Victor Santos, Rio’s minister for public security, said 280,000 people live in the neighbourhoods that were raided. “This is a war we are seeing in Rio de Janeiro,” Santos said, blaming decades of institutional inaction for allowing crime to expand in the territory.
The raid came days before Rio was scheduled to welcome the C40 World Mayors Summit and the Earthshot Prize, which Prince William is set to hand out on November 5. As ever in Rio, the operation’s toll has outrun the explanations offered for it.
Sources
- At least 132 killed in Rio police raid, officials say
- Brazil police raid death toll doubles to 132, Rio state watchdog says – The Washington Post
