Capital reels as deadly police op claims 119 lives

Brazil was on edge Wednesday following a historically lethal police operation in Rio de Janeiro that turned the nation’s focus to the scourge of drug gangs and heavy-handed tactics used to combat them.

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At least 119 people were killed during a series of Tuesday raids that erupted into all-day shootouts between police and members of organised crime groups, Rio state officials said Wednesday. The carnage turned the raids into the deadliest single-day police operation in Brazil's history. Four police officers were among those killed.

Scenes from the bloody raids, which authorities said targeted the notorious Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, gang in the city’s northern favela communities, have reverberated across Latin America’s largest nation and the world, drawing condemnation from the United Nations.