29 October, 2025
Residents carry a body out of the Vacaria forest, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the complete absence of state rescue or forensic teams, the community was forced to recover their own dead.
In October 2025, a massive police operation targeting the Comando Vermelho criminal syndicate unfolded in Rio de Janeiro’s Complexo do Alemão and Penha favelas. Deploying a record 2,500 local and military officers, the raid was the deadliest police operation in Brazilian history. Of the 122 who were killed, the vast majority were Afro-Brazilians. In the aftermath, authorities failed to deploy forensic teams, forcing the community to bear the physical and emotional weight of carrying their own dead.
