“Gunfire Could be Heard Throughout the Night”: Protests and Testimonies of Residents of the Biggest Massacre in Rio de Janeiro
We hereby share a summarization of an article by A Nova Democracia.
Rio de Janeiro woke up under the complicit silence of the “authorities” in the wake of the most significant recent event in the country. Following a police operation led by the hyenas of the Special Police Operations Battalion (BOPE) in the Alemão and Penha complexes, there were 136 deaths—a number that may grow as bodies are recovered from the forests and streets.
This purely media-driven and electoral action, framed under the guise of “fighting crime,” mobilized around 2,500 police officers from the Civil and Military forces, leaving a trail of destruction, executions, and terror.
From the beginning, residents reported that helicopters and armored vehicles were firing indiscriminately, hitting homes and businesses. Bodies were left abandoned on the ground, without forensic examination, isolation, or identification. The result of this “operation” was merely 70 rifles—almost half the number of the dead—and 200 kilograms of drugs.
Meanwhile, the infamous governor of Rio de Janeiro, Cláudio Castro, celebrated the “effectiveness” of the operation, claiming that “the power of the State prevailed.” The federal government, for its part, remained true to its opportunistic tradition, complicit in the repression of the masses and the genocide of the poor people. Luiz Inácio omitted statements, which signifies an act of complicity. The Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, simply stated that he is “closely monitoring the case.”
The international reaction was immediate. Organizations like Human Rights Watch and International Amnesty classified the episode as a “massacre of civilians” and demanded an independent investigation. Even influential international media outlets like The Guardian described the event as “the worst day of violence in Rio.”
Executions and tales of terror abound in this troubling account
The recorded scenes portray a brutal picture of a massacre. Images captured at the scene by the newspaper A Nova Democracia show the destruction of residents’ homes from police gunfire.
Last night (October 28), videos recorded by residents revealed the start of spontaneous protests against the slaughter. A group emerged from an alley with an improvised banner, only to be met with gunfire from the Military Police, who shouted, “They’re recording!” and “Live broadcast!”, urging their neighbors, “Come to the street!” Moments later, another recording shows the same group walking down the main street chanting, “We want peace!” A BOPE armored vehicle accelerated toward the crowd, nearly running over the desperate protesters.
In the vicinity of the favela complex, police set up a roadblock on one of the access roads and opened fire on a private car, injuring both occupants. In a video recorded shortly after the attack, the vehicle appears riddled with bullets and surrounded by a pool of blood on the asphalt. Another “suspect” turned into a summary execution.
On October 29, residents ventured into the woods to retrieve the bodies that the police had abandoned, accounting for at least 72 corpses according to the residents themselves. All were recovered from wooded areas where gunfire could still be heard throughout the night. The police repeatedly attempted to prevent families from recovering the bodies, but the community mobilized and advanced in the morning, carrying signs and banners.
Throughout the night, as residents tried to recover the bodies, the Military Police monitored the group with drones and fired rifles to intimidate them. One resident recounted, “They closed all access to the woods while simulating confrontations inside and killing the remaining people there. Since there were still survivors, many of the people whose bodies are here today were alive last night, trying to surrender. All of them, along with their families, were negotiating their surrender to ensure their survival, but the police surrounded the entire forest and tortured these people throughout the night, preventing them from escaping, which was only possible this morning.”
Another neighbor, deeply outraged, shouted near the gathered bodies at the São Lucas square: “People need education and culture, not this cowardice. What they did was surreal. Many survivors surrendered, and they were gunned down, had their heads severed, and their bodies dismembered. What kind of operation is this? It was a massacre!” she exclaimed.
The local correspondent of AND showed the wooded area where the bodies were found. “It was full of blood. It was where the police didn’t want the protesters to go. They held suspects hostage; many were executed.”
After recovering the bodies, residents emerged from the wooded area with signs in hand, singing songs like the famous chorus of “Rap da Felicidade” by Cidinho and Doca: “I just want to be happy / to walk in peace through the favela where I was born…” turning grief into struggle and rebellion.
War crimes on Brazilian soil
The images and testimonies collected reveal that the bloody “BOPE operation” was, in practice, a mass execution of unarmed and surrendered young people, abandoned and helpless before the uniformed troops of the old State.
All these incidents have been recognized by international organizations as war crimes and judged in courts or human rights commissions. What is happening in Rio de Janeiro is a clearly analogous case: summary executions, concealment of bodies, lack of victim identification, war rhetoric against “internal enemies,” and public celebration of the massacre.
The murderous “elite troops” of Rio de Janeiro are replicating tactics of ethnic cleansing and counterinsurgency employed in scenarios of imperialist occupation. BOPE acts as a true invading army in enemy territory, not as a public security force. The difference is that here, the enemy is the people themselves: poor Black youth, many innocent workers, treated as military targets in their own city. The favelas are “hostile territories” where the Brazilian State tests its weapons and drones, enjoying complete impunity.
To make matters worse, the opportunistic government of Luiz Inácio/PT remains submissive, feigning cowardly moderation. The federal government’s actions aim to endorse barbarism in the name of the so-called “war on drugs,” a dictate of American imperialism to militarize the subcontinent and justify the extermination of the poor. Like the far-right representatives in the Rio government, Luiz Inácio acts merely as another lackey of this project.
The source of all the pictures and videos in the article is A Nova Democracia (AND)
