BRAZIL: 10 people killed during police raid to find drug kingpin in quarantined slum

Tragedy struck in the quarantined Complexo do Alemao neighbourhood in Brazil when police seeking a gang leader raided a cluster of poor neighbourhoods in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, clashing with residents and killing at least 10 people in the process.

In a statement on Friday, police said “multiple clashes” erupted when an elite unit investigating the whereabouts of a local drug kingpin entered the quarantined Complexo do Alemao neighbourhood.

The identity of the drug kingpin who was among those killed in the operation was not released, but officials said he had escaped prison in 2016 and was considered one of the leading drug traffickers in the Pavao-Pavaozinho and Cantagalo slums, which border Rio’s iconic Copacabana and Ipanema neighbourhoods.

Family members at the scene cried as they covered the bodies, already wrapped in fabrics, with cardboard boxes to shelter them from the rain.

“Social-distancing… For who?” asked Fabio Felix, a left-wing legislator, on Twitter. “It’s incredible that the lives of the poor aren’t worth anything, even during a pandemic!”

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Several residents complained that the government was offering little aid to contain the new coronavirus, but was still engaging in violent police operations that risked spreading the virus through low-income communities.

“Within and outside the context of a pandemic, we demand that public security authorities respect human rights while policing,” the Brazilian office of Amnesty International said on Twitter.

However, police said in a statement, that the incident would be reviewed by homicide detectives, following standard practice.

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