<p>The death toll from a police raid on a drug gang in a poor Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood on Thursday has risen to 28, civil police said on Friday, the deadliest operation ever carried out by the security forces in the Brazilian city.</p>.<p>The bodies of three more victims removed from the favela on Friday were men with links to organized crime, according to police. Twenty-four other people and a police officer also died in the operation in the northern Rio neighbourhood of Jacarezinho.</p>.<p>"Intelligence confirmed that the dead were drug dealers. They fired at officers, to kill. They had orders to confront," Civil Police chief Allan Turnowski told reporters.</p>.<p>The bloodbath prompted criticism from human rights groups including Amnesty International, which lambasted the police for the "reprehensible and unjustifiable" loss of life in a neighbourhood mostly populated by Black and poor people.</p>.<p>The United Nations human rights office on Friday called for an independent investigation into the operation. UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said the police deployed a "disproportionate and unnecessary" use of force.</p>
<p>The death toll from a police raid on a drug gang in a poor Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood on Thursday has risen to 28, civil police said on Friday, the deadliest operation ever carried out by the security forces in the Brazilian city.</p>.<p>The bodies of three more victims removed from the favela on Friday were men with links to organized crime, according to police. Twenty-four other people and a police officer also died in the operation in the northern Rio neighbourhood of Jacarezinho.</p>.<p>"Intelligence confirmed that the dead were drug dealers. They fired at officers, to kill. They had orders to confront," Civil Police chief Allan Turnowski told reporters.</p>.<p>The bloodbath prompted criticism from human rights groups including Amnesty International, which lambasted the police for the "reprehensible and unjustifiable" loss of life in a neighbourhood mostly populated by Black and poor people.</p>.<p>The United Nations human rights office on Friday called for an independent investigation into the operation. UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said the police deployed a "disproportionate and unnecessary" use of force.</p>