Rio faces deadliest police operation in recent years
Operation Contenção (“Containment”), carried out in the Penha and Alemão favela complexes in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday (Oct. 28), left at least 64 people dead, including 60 civilians and four military personnel, and is considered the deadliest massacre in recent years, as per the Fogo Cruzado Institute. The crackdown surpasses the one conducted in 2021 in Jacarezinho – another slum in Rio – which left 27 civilians dead.
The number of deaths in this raid accounts for about one-fifth of killings in all 353 police actions held in 2025. According to data collected so far, the operation also left 11 civilians and eight police officers injured.
In recent years, the institute reported, the deadliest crackdown in Rio:
October 28, 2025 – Complexo da Penha and Complexo do Alemão, 64 killed;
May 6, 2021 – Jacarezinho, 27 killed;
May 24, 2022 – Complexo da Penha, with 23 killed;
July 21, 2022 – Complexo do Alemão, with 16 killed; and
March 23, 2023 – Salgueiro, with 13 killed.
The state government stated that Rio de Janeiro is undergoing its largest security raid in 15 years. A total of 2,500 civil and military police officers were mobilized in crackdowns in the Alemão (western Rio) and Penha (north) complexes, separated by forest. The goal is to capture criminal leaders and contain the territorial expansion of the criminal organization Comando Vermelho.
The raid sparked fear among residents, disrupted services, closed schools and roads across the city, and was widely criticized. The Human Rights Commission of Rio’s Legislative Assembly said in a statement it is monitoring “with extreme concern the escalation of violence caused by the mega-operation.”
The commission said it will ask public prosecutors as well as civil and military police authorities for explanations about the circumstances of the operation, “which once again turned Rio’s favelas into a scene of war and barbarism.”
