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Favela War

Heavy gun battles happen on an almost daily basis in the city of Rio, especially in the favelas - poor, mostly unregulated shanty towns inside and around the city - and other peripheral neighborhoods, where drug gangs and several militia groups battle for control of territory and against the police.

Operation Containment, as authorities dubbed it, took place days before a pair of major events in the city prior to the COP30 global climate summit taking place far to the north of Rio in Belem, starting on November 10. Brazil's second-most populous city will host two warm-up events next week: the C40 summit, bringing together mayors from more than 100 of the world's major cities; and British heir to the throne Prince William's Earthshot Prize, awarded to five winners each year for their contributions toward environmentalism. That ceremony will feature celebrities, including pop singer Kylie Minogue and German four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel.

The large-scale narcotics operation against the Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, crime syndicate in Rio de Janeiro led to 81 arrests, 132 dead suspects and four dead police officers, officials said 29 October 2025. There was a mega police operation, which as a result led to the seizure of 200 firearms, 10 tons of drugs, 81 arrests, and as a consequence there were 114 deaths (4 of them police officers) and 17 injured. Rio Governor Claudio Castro said of Tuesday's operation that some 64 people had been killed, but residents laid out at least 64 corpses on the street, as evidence that the raid had left more people dead. "We stand firm confronting narcoterrorism," Castro wrote on social media as he announced the operation. He said that 2,500 security personnel were deployed across the impoverished and densely populated Alemao and Penha favela complexes on the outskirts of the Brazilian city, near the international airport.

Two drug trafficking factions had been in a civil war for years and nobody cares. Every day the traffickers kill each other, with civilian casualties. People were killed daily by drug traffickers for trivial reasons or none. UN Human Rights Office in Brazil stated: "We are horrified by the ongoing police operation in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, reportedly already resulting in deaths of over 60 people, including 4 police officers. This deadly operation furthers the trend of extreme lethal consequences of police operations in Brazil’s marginalized communities. We remind authorities of their obligations under international human rights law, and urge prompt and effective investigations.""

The Continuing Crisis

As Rio de Janeiro entered 2026, the fundamental dynamics that have produced nearly a decade of extreme violence since 2017 remain largely unchanged despite various interventions and shifts in approach. The drug trafficking organizations continue to control significant territories, generating enormous profits from cocaine distribution while providing employment and parallel governance structures in areas where the state remains absent or predatory. Militias have expanded and evolved, fragmenting into rival factions while deepening their penetration of legitimate political and economic structures. The police oscillate between extreme violence during operations and corruption-tinged accommodation with armed groups during quieter periods, lacking the intelligence capabilities, training, resources, and institutional culture needed for effective community-oriented law enforcement. The judicial system produces conviction rates below ten percent for homicides, ensuring impunity that perpetuates violence by all parties. Politicians continue to weaponize public security fears through rhetoric that dehumanizes favela residents and promises ever more militarized solutions to social problems rooted in inequality and exclusion.

Several structural factors ensure that Rio's favela drug war will continue absent fundamental changes in approach. The geography of the city, with dozens of favelas perched on hills that offer tactical advantages to those controlling them, creates easily defended territories that require massive force to penetrate. The economics of the cocaine trade flowing from South America's producing nations through Brazil to global markets provide limitless financial resources for criminal organizations to purchase weapons, recruit members, and corrupt officials. The social conditions in favelas, where poverty, unemployment, inadequate education, and absence of opportunity interact with historical marginalization and racism, create both the market for drug consumption and the pool of young people vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups. The political economy of violence itself generates profits for multiple actors: criminal organizations, corrupt police who extract bribes, politicians who campaign on law-and-order platforms, arms dealers, security companies, and media outlets that profit from sensational coverage.

The failure of the Police Pacification Units program offers crucial lessons that subsequent administrations have largely ignored. The UPPs demonstrated that simply occupying favela territory with armed officers, absent sustained investment in social development, community engagement, accountability mechanisms, and long-term commitment, produces only temporary reductions in open violence that quickly reverse once resources diminish or political attention shifts elsewhere. The program's expansion beyond manageable scope, its reliance on military police culture ill-suited for community policing, its lack of civilian oversight, its failure to address underlying socioeconomic conditions, and its vulnerability to budget cuts and corruption all contributed to its collapse. Yet rather than learning from these failures to design more comprehensive approaches that address root causes, subsequent governors have reverted to even more violent strategies that prioritize body counts over genuine public safety.

International comparisons reveal the exceptional nature of Rio's violence levels and police lethality. While cities like Medellín Colombia implemented comprehensive programs combining strict enforcement with massive social investment in marginalized communities, producing sustained reductions in violence, Rio's approach has remained predominantly militaristic. The city's police kill at rates orders of magnitude higher than law enforcement agencies in the United States, Europe, or even most other Latin American countries. The normalization of helicopters as shooting platforms, the use of explosives in densely populated residential areas, the doctrine that police should "shoot to kill" rather than attempt arrest, and the systematic failure to preserve crime scenes or conduct meaningful investigations all place Rio's security forces outside the boundaries of acceptable democratic policing. The regular invocation of war metaphors by officials obscures the reality that favela residents are Brazilian citizens entitled to constitutional protections, not enemy combatants subject to rules of armed conflict.

The Supreme Court's intervention through ADPF 635 represents a historic attempt by Brazil's judiciary to impose constitutional constraints on a security policy characterized by systematic human rights violations and structural racism. The case's achievements include reducing police lethality, establishing precedents for judicial oversight of law enforcement, requiring body cameras and transparency measures, and creating legal mechanisms for challenging unconstitutional practices. However, the court faces significant limitations in its capacity to effect systemic change. Judicial orders cannot substitute for comprehensive political reform, adequate funding for social programs, restructuring of police institutions, addressing inequality and racism, or building the political will needed for long-term solutions. The ease with which Rio's government continues to conduct massive violent operations like Operation Containment in 2025, despite ADPF 635 restrictions, demonstrates that legal constraints alone prove insufficient without enforcement mechanisms and political commitment to change.

Looking forward, several potential scenarios appear possible for Rio's favelas. The cycle of violence could continue indefinitely, with periodic escalations during operations followed by periods of uneasy coexistence as criminal organizations consolidate control and the state lacks resources or will for sustained intervention. Militias could expand further, ultimately controlling even larger portions of the state and deepening their integration with political structures, creating a more stable but fundamentally corrupt and oppressive governance system. A new pacification-style initiative might attempt to learn from past failures, though Rio's fiscal crisis and Brazil's broader political instability make sustained investment unlikely. International intervention through United Nations mechanisms or international courts could eventually impose external pressure for reform, though Brazil's sovereignty and size make this scenario distant. Or a combination of falling drug prices, demographic changes as Brazil's young male population shrinks, improved education and employment opportunities, and generational shifts in political culture could gradually reduce violence over decades as seen in other contexts.

The tragedy of Rio de Janeiro's favela drug war lies in the preventable nature of much of the suffering. Evidence from cities around the world demonstrates that comprehensive approaches combining reformed policing, investment in education and opportunity, treatment for addiction, disruption of criminal finance, and political commitment to inclusion and equality can reduce violence even in contexts of entrenched criminal organizations and structural inequality. However, implementing such approaches requires exactly what has been absent in Rio: sustained political will across administrations, substantial and continuing financial investment, patience to build trust and institutions over years, willingness to acknowledge and address racism and inequality, acceptance that security is inseparable from development and social justice, and recognition that residents of favelas are citizens deserving of protection rather than enemy populations to be controlled through force.

As of late 2025, Rio de Janeiro remained trapped in a deadly equilibrium where no party has the capacity or interest to fundamentally alter the dynamics of conflict. Criminal organizations profit enormously from drug trafficking and extortion while commanding loyalty or fear from communities that see them as more reliable than the state. Police maximize their autonomy and opportunities for corruption through a model that combines periodic violent operations with informal arrangements that allow trafficking to continue. Politicians win elections by promising violent crackdowns that appeal to fears while avoiding difficult questions about inequality and structural reform. The media generates revenue from sensational coverage of violence while rarely examining root causes. And ordinary favela residents bear the cost in blood, trauma, and degradation, caught between armed groups competing for control while their fundamental rights to security, opportunity, and dignity remain unfulfilled. The favela drug war that escalated so dramatically since 2017 shows no signs of ending, as the systems that produce and perpetuate the violence remain fundamentally unchanged despite the mounting human toll.