At least 18 people have died during a major raid in one of Rio de Janeiro's slums, in the latest bloody confrontation between police and an alleged criminal organisation.
Tactical teams from Rio de Janeiro's civil and military police raided the Alemao complex to take down an alleged criminal organisation.
The group was suspected of involvement in cargo theft and bank robberies and was planning incursions into rival slums, the military police said in a statement.
At least 18 people died in the raid: one police officer, 16 alleged criminals and a female bystander, police said.
The operation involved around 400 officers, four aircraft and 10 armoured vehicles.
"They're not letting us help [victims]," she added, saying she saw one man arrested for attempting to do so.
The lopsided death toll ignited fears of human rights abuses.
"There are signs of major human rights violations, and the possibility of this being one of the operations with the highest number of deaths in Rio de Janeiro," the state public defender's office said in a statement.
The military police declined comment beyond their statement.
Rio state police forces regularly carry out deadly raids in the city's sprawling slums.
President Jair Bolsonaro supports heavy-handed tactics by police in their fight against organised crime, and has said gangsters should "die like cockroaches".
After the raid, locals could be seen bundling injured people into the back of vehicles to be taken to hospital as police watched.
Gilberto Santiago Lopes, from the Anacrim Human Rights Commission, said police refused to help.
"We had to carry them away in a beverage truck, and then flag a local resident in their car to take them to hospital," he said.
"[The police] don't aim to arrest them, they aim to kill them, so if they're injured, they think they don't deserve help."
Local residents were furious and yelled at the police.
"We're scared to live here," one local screamed after the raid.
On Twitter, Rio Governor Cláudio Castro said he lamented the police officer's death.
"I will continue to fight crime with all my strength. We will not back down from the mission of guaranteeing peace and security to the people of our state," Mr Castro said.
Alemao is a complex of 13 slums, known as favelas, in northern Rio. It is home to about 70,000 people.
Nearly three-quarters of them are Afro-Brazilians, according to a July 2020 study published by the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economical Analyses.
"ENOUGH of this genocidal policy, governor!" Talíria Petrone, a federal politician for Rio, said in response to the Governor's tweet.
"This failed public security policy leaves residents and police on the ground, en masse. It's no longer possible to keep piling up Black bodies and favela residents every day!"
ABC/wires
