Clouds of smoke fouled the dawn air as drug traffickers torched tyres and cars and opened fire from above.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like the shooting was inside our house \u2026 like we were in the middle of a war,\u201d said Concei\u00e7\u00e3o, who sheltered indoors as her neighbourhood became a battleground.<\/p>\n
By nightfall, the father of her six children, Ronaldo Juli\u00e3o da Silva, would lie dead in a nearby alley \u2013 one of 122 people killed in the deadliest police operation in Brazilian history. Five of the victims were police.<\/p>\n
Juliana Concei\u00e7\u00e3o, whose ex-husband, Ronaldo Juli\u00e3o da Silva, was one of those shot dead during the police operation in the Complexo da Penha. Relatives insist he was not involved in crime. Photograph: Alan Lima\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happened just down here,\u201d Concei\u00e7\u00e3o said 10 days after the 17-hour raid, as she led the way down the passageway where her ex-husband was found, his skull and hand shredded by gunfire.<\/p>\n
Ana Beatriz shows a photograph of her father, Ronaldo Juli\u00e3o da Silva, 46, taken shortly before he was shot dead. Photograph: Alan Lima\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
She carried a yellow certificate attributing Silva\u2019s death \u2013 a day after his 46th birthday \u2013 to \u201ccerebral and cardiac laceration [caused by] perforating blunt force\u201d.<\/p>\n
The bricklayer\u2019s place of death was given as Saint Luke Square, the plaza at the foot of the favela where scores of bodies were dumped after police withdrew. But his life actually ended half a mile away, as he tried to reach his home on the favela\u2019s southern rim. \u201cMy dad wasn\u2019t a crook. My dad was a worker,\u201d said his 20-year-old daughter, Ana Beatriz, wiping tears from her eyes.<\/p>\n
Three months after the carnage of 28 October, many questions remain about Operation Containment, an incursion police chiefs and rightwing politicians celebrated as a historic blow to one of Brazil\u2019s biggest organised crime groups \u2013 the Rio-born Red Command drug faction \u2013 but which activists, security experts, and even Brazil\u2019s president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, have called a futile massacre<\/a>.<\/p>\n In more than two dozen interviews with community leaders, lawyers, security specialists and bereaved relatives, the Guardian pieced together the story of the bloodiest day in Rio\u2019s modern history.<\/p>\n The investigation found that:<\/p>\n Of the 117 non-police fatalities, at least one person was not involved in crime, despite official claims that all those killed were traffickers.<\/p>\n The list of 100 arrest warrants justifying the operation featured none of the names of those 117 people.<\/p>\n In a sign of the Red Command\u2019s rapid spread around Brazil, the majority of those killed were from regions outside Rio such as the Amazon states of Amazonas and Par\u00e1, the north-east and midwest.<\/p>\n Police refused to disclose the race of those killed but relatives, journalists and sources with knowledge of the forensic investigation said the vast majority were black, reinforcing research showing police violence disproportionately affects Afro-Brazilians.<\/p>\n Tracking \u2018the Bear\u2019Lt Kelly Patricia Camara da Silva\u2019s photo of herself at the Bear\u2019s lair. Photograph: Courtesy of Lieutenant Kelly Patricia Camara da Silva<\/p>\n When Lt Kelly Patricia Camara da Silva, a 30-year-old member of a specialist high-risk military police unit called the Shock Battalion, woke at 3am on 28 October she had no idea she was about to face the most dangerous undertaking of her three-year career.<\/p>\n After 60 days of planning and a year\u2019s investigation, police were preparing to launch a massive assault on the Complexo da Penha, which along with the neighbouring Complexo do Alem\u00e3o, is considered the Red Command\u2019s \u201cnational headquarters\u201d.<\/p>\n One hundred arrest warrants had been issued, but the prime target was the local drug boss Edgar Alves de Andrade, AKA \u201cthe Bear\u201d.<\/p>\n Map of Rio de Janeiro showing Complexo do Penha and Complexo do Alemao<\/a><\/p>\n Police estimated the area was guarded by 800-1,000 traffickers armed with automatic rifles, explosives and grenade-launching drones. To outnumber them, 2,500 officers would be deployed \u2013 at least twice as many as in past operations.<\/p>\n Silva was the only woman commanding a unit that day and her seven-strong team was among the first groups to enter the Complexo da Penha at about 5am. Their task was climbing the favela\u2019s steep, narrow alleyways to contain armed resistance so colleagues could follow and make arrests.<\/p>\n \u201cThe higher you go, the riskier it gets,\u201d said Silva, whose target was Vila Cruzeiro, one of 13 communities forming the complex. \u201cThese favelas are on hillsides so when we\u2019re at the bottom, we can\u2019t see anything \u2013 but [the traffickers] have a full view of us from above.\u201d<\/p>\n Barricades blocked almost every route. Where armoured vehicles could no longer advance, police continued on foot.<\/p>\n As Silva\u2019s team progressed past murals honouring fallen Red Command members, many of the Bear\u2019s foot soldiers melted into the bush above the community, apparently hoping to flee to safety in Alem\u00e3o by crossing the Serra da Miseric\u00f3rdia, the Hill of Mercy, a vast rocky massif covered in Atlantic rainforest.<\/p>\n At about 6.50am, dozens of heavily armed criminals wearing black or camouflage outfits almost identical to police uniforms were filmed<\/a> climbing a concrete staircase into a scrubland area known as Vacaria that is part of the Hill of Mercy. Most of them would never be seen alive again.<\/p>\n At around the same time, Erivelton Vidal Correia, a community leader, took advantage of a lull in the shooting and rushed to Vila Cruzeiro\u2019s neighbourhood association near Saint Luke Square.<\/p>\n Outside, huddles of women \u2013 the mothers, sisters and partners of men involved in the local drug trade \u2013 had gathered seeking news. As the battle raged, Correia served coffee and comforted the women as their phones filled with WhatsApp messages from their besieged loved ones: We\u2019re surrounded! We\u2019re trapped! The police are here! See if you can come and find us!<\/p>\n One of those looking for her child was Tau\u00e3 Brito, a 36-year-old salesperson, whose 20-year-old son, Wellington Brito Santos, was hiding in the forest.<\/p>\n Brito had raised Santos with help from her grandmother. \u201cI\u2019m a black woman from the favela struggling to raise her kids,\u201d she said. \u201cI always tried to do my best \u2026 within my financial situation.\u201d<\/p>\n Erivelton Vidal Correia, a community leader in Vila Cruzeiro, one of 13 favelas that make up the Complexo da Penha. Photograph: Alan Lima\/The Guardian<\/p>\n But four years ago Santos joined the gang \u2013 and it was he who warned his mother of the police\u2019s arrival. \u201cThe operation has started,\u201d he texted her at 4.45am.<\/p>\n Ten minutes later she replied, urging him to pray and remember Psalm 91. \u201cSurely he will save you from the fowler\u2019s snare and from the deadly pestilence,\u201d it says. \u201cHe will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes Mum,\u201d Santos wrote back.<\/p>\n Soon after, Santos was one of the traffickers filmed climbing the staircase towards Vacaria. \u201cYou need to get it together,\u201d his mother texted as he hid in the scrub. \u201cI know mum,\u201d he replied at 7.23am.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like I\u2019m going to have a heart attack, Wellington. You don\u2019t need this,\u201d she went on, suggesting they leave the favela and start afresh. \u201cI want to turn 21,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The last message Brito received came an hour later, at 8.22am. \u201cI\u2019m OK. Stay calm Mum,\u201d Santos said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m praying non-stop,\u201d she answered. There was no reply.<\/p>\n Tau\u00e3 Brito shows the last messages she exchanged with her son, Wellington, before he was killed during the police operation on 28 October. \u2018I\u2019m praying non-stop,\u2019 she tells him at 8.59am. There is no reply. Photograph: Alan Lima\/The GuardianThe wall<\/p>\n As they took flight across the Hill of Mercy, Wellington and his companions didn\u2019t know there was no way out.<\/p>\n Under the cover of darkness, dozens of officers from the elite military police unit Bope \u2013 whose troops are called \u201cskulls\u201d for their dagger-pierced skull insignia \u2013 had climbed the mountain from the other side.<\/p>\n Wearing fluorescent green armbands to distinguish themselves from the traffickers, they took up position at the summit hoping to solve a problem they had faced in dozens of previous operations: whenever police entered Alem\u00e3o or Penha, the traffickers would simply flee through the forest to other side.<\/p>\n Map of the Complexo do Penha and Complexo do Alemao, with positions of barricades, police and criminals<\/a><\/p>\n Previously, police commanders had judged occupying the Hill of Mercy too risky. That day, for the first time, they decided to change tactics.<\/p>\n As planned, Sgt Jorge Martins\u2019s team reached the hilltop at dawn to form \u201ca wall\u201d. \u201cBut sometimes things don\u2019t always go the way we imagine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As clusters of traffickers and police did battle on different parts of the mount, the situation began to spiral out of control.<\/p>\n At about 8.20am, a member of the dog unit was shot in the leg near a cluster of shacks known as the Promised Land.<\/p>\n An hour later, a group of civil police officers were attacked as they chased a group of traffickers into Vacaria. One officer was shot in the hand. A second in the belly. A third in the head.<\/p>\n The Bope team abandoned their positions to rescue their colleagues. \u201cWhen we got there, that\u2019s when things really started to heat up,\u201d Martins said.<\/p>\n From then on, \u201cit stopped being an operation to execute warrants and became a full-scale rescue mission\u201d, the Bope commander, Lt Col Marcelo Corbage, later told the public prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n At the headquarters of Rio\u2019s civil police, weapons seized at the house where a resident was taken hostage by 26 traffickers. Photograph: Courtesy of Lieutenant Kelly Patricia Camara da Silva\u2018Welcome to the jungle\u2019<\/p>\n Not far away, Silva\u2019s team had reached part of the favela called Cabar\u00e9, just outside the forest, which investigators believed housed one of the Bear\u2019s main strongholds \u2013 a place they called his \u201clair\u201d.<\/p>\n In a sign \u201cthe lair\u201d was nearby, Silva spotted a mural showing a rifle-toting bear in a bulletproof vest and the warning: \u201cWelcome to the jungle.\u201d She took a selfie. \u201cWe knew it was a very hot area, that something could happen there.\u201d<\/p>\n Map of the Complexo do Penha. Points show where a police officer was shot and where rifle casing were found<\/a><\/p>\n At about 9.40am it did. Word reached Silva\u2019s team that a resident<\/a> had been taken hostage by 26 traffickers who had stormed her home. Police shot one man dead and Silva began negotiating with the rest, even though her team was badly outnumbered \u2013 14 officers versus 25 criminals. \u201cI don\u2019t think they really understood what was happening \u2026 If they\u2019d realised they might have an advantage, the situation could have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n Fearing execution, the men forced the homeowner to record their surrender<\/a>. \u201cYou can come out, you\u2019re not going to die \u2026 no one\u2019s going to shoot,\u201d an officer claimed as a cameraman filmed<\/a> the scene. One by one, shirtless young men emerged and were arrested.<\/p>\n Chaos in the woods<\/p>\n But up on the Hill of Mercy, the gunfire never stopped. \u201cYou hear the shots, try to locate them, but then fire comes from the other side and, even with training, you get disoriented and can\u2019t process it,\u201d said Martins.<\/p>\n At 4pm, his team ran into a group of traffickers as they advanced through the forest. Martins was struck in the calf and a colleague in the leg. \u201cI thought: \u2018If I got hit, the guy can see me.\u2019 So I threw myself down a slope with my colleague and we rolled \u2026 It was a serious wound but I thought: \u2018I\u2019m not going to die from this one,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Both men were eventually rescued by an armoured ambulance and survived but two other Bope officers died from gunshot wounds. Three civil police officers also died while 14 police officers were injured. Never before in Rio had so many police been killed or wounded in a single operation. Most were hit on the Hill of Mercy \u2013 as were the vast majority of civilians killed.<\/p>\n A source close to the investigation questioned police claims that all those killed in the forest died resisting arrest. \u201cIf what the police say is true \u2013 that they were dealing with criminals who knew the area extremely well, who were hidden and entrenched \u2013 how is it possible that \u2026 despite the considerable number of officers killed, the number of dead criminals is so disproportionately higher?\u201d they asked.<\/p>\n The source could not rule out a story circulating in the favela that, after rescuing their wounded and retrieving their dead, police killed every trafficker they could find on the hill as an act of revenge. The police vehemently deny this account.<\/p>\n Vera Juli\u00e3o da Silva standing on the veranda where she last saw her brother Ronaldo Juli\u00e3o da Silva, shortly before he was shot dead. Photograph: Alan Lima\/The Guardian\u2018Ronaldo\u2019s dead\u2019<\/p>\n Ronaldo Juli\u00e3o da Silva, a bricklayer, had spent nearly the whole day at the house of his sister, Vera. He feared being found at home by police and confused with a trafficker, with possibly fatal consequences. \u201cWhenever there\u2019s an operation he comes here to sleep,\u201d said Vera, recalling how Silva passed the time chain-smoking on her roof.<\/p>\n At around 4pm Silva\u2019s niece photographed her uncle on the veranda and sent his daughter the picture to show he was safe.<\/p>\n By about 7pm \u2013 more than 12 hours after the operation began \u2013 the shooting had subsided and Silva set off towards his house, near the edge of the forest, about five minutes\u2019 walk away.<\/p>\n \u201cHe left and didn\u2019t come back,\u201d said Vera, 49, standing on the terrace where she last saw him. Residents say police shot Silva dead in an alley about 500 metres from his home. A friend broke the news to relatives: \u201cRonaldo\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n Authorities have insisted all of the 117 fatalities were criminals. \u201cThe only victims were police,\u201d Rio\u2019s rightwing governor, Cl\u00e1udio Castro, told journalists<\/a>. In a report submitted to the supreme court, police called those killed \u201cneutralised opponents\u201d.<\/p>\n A protest against the police operation in Rio de Janeiro and in protest against Governor Cl\u00e1udio Castro in S\u00e3o Paulo on 31 October 2025. Photograph: Cris Faga\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n But Silva\u2019s relatives are adamant he was not involved in crime. None of the 117 people killed were on the arrest warrant list justifying the operation. Even if they had been, Brazil does not have the death penalty.<\/p>\n Police later admitted 17 of those killed \u2013 including Silva \u2013 had no criminal record but claimed there were \u201cindications\u201d some were involved in crime. One man had posted a red triangle emoji<\/a> supposedly symbolising the Red Command. Another had posted nothing since 2022, something officers took as proof of evidence concealment.<\/p>\n Of the operation\u2019s 100 arrest warrants, only 17 were executed. The Bear remains at large.<\/p>\n Chart showing how Red Command has been in control of increasing amounts of territory in Rio de Janeiro city<\/a>Searching for the dead<\/p>\n As the last police vehicle was filmed leaving the favela at about 10pm, local women began hiking into the forest to find their men. Many hailed from the Amazon state of Par\u00e1, more than 1,200 miles (2,000km) to Rio\u2019s north, which has become a major Red Command base because of its strategic location on one of South America\u2019s most important cocaine smuggling routes.<\/p>\n Correia, the community leader, joined the searchers as they entered Vacaria, using mobile phone flashlights to navigate the boulder-strewn bush.<\/p>\n Almost immediately, they started seeing bullet-riddled bodies, many with horrific injuries. One 19-year-old, later named as Yago Ravel Rodrigues, had been decapitated, his head displayed on a tree.<\/p>\n \u201cThe women were shouting, they cried \u2013 and they were focused. The more [bodies] they found, the more they pushed on and the more they found,\u201d said Correia, recalling how searchers relied on moonlight when their phone batteries died.<\/p>\n Tau\u00e3 Brito was there and, at just after 1am, found her son near the stairway the traffickers were filmed climbing. \u201cHe\u2019d been stabbed in the arm and shot in the head,\u201d she said. One arm had a cord attached to it, as if his hands had been bound.<\/p>\n Map of Penha and times and locations of where the first bodies were recovered<\/a><\/p>\n All night long, corpses were hauled out in sheets and stretchers. Pickups ferried them to Saint Luke Square, where they were placed on tarpaulins outside Correia\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Some wore camouflaged ghillie suits, which locals cut off and discarded in a wheelie bin. Ronaldo Juli\u00e3o da Silva sported the same red shorts he was wearing when last seen alive.<\/p>\n A photograph of Michel Pe\u00e7anha, 14, the youngest of the 117 people shot dead by police during the Complexo da Penha raid. Photograph: Alan Lima<\/p>\n The dead included 14-year-old Michel Pe\u00e7anha, who a family friend said had worked selling sweetcorn to tourists on Copacabana beach before joining the gang a few months earlier. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t some kind of narco-terrorist,\u201d insisted Edson Soares, a preacher who knows Pe\u00e7anha\u2019s father. \u201cHe didn\u2019t even know how to shoot a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n By 9am, more than 60 bodies lay there and broken-hearted women sat cradling the heads of their broken men.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s evil. They kill for pleasure,\u201d Tau\u00e3 Brito said of the police as she guarded her son\u2019s corpse. \u201cThey don\u2019t do anything for the kids or for the community. This is all they know how to do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018An infinite war\u2019Recovered bodies at the entrance of the Vila Cruzeiro favela. Photograph: Alan Lima\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The activists in Vila Cruzeiro that morning voiced outrage at the bloodbath, even more lethal than 1992\u2019s Carandiru prison massacre<\/a> in S\u00e3o Paulo when 111 inmates died. Many demanded the removal of Governor Castro, who has overseen three of Rio\u2019s deadliest police operations since taking power in 2020.<\/p>\n The former police chief Orlando Zaccone claimed the operation showed how the longstanding but illegal police tactic of \u201cTrojan horse\u201d attacks \u2013 where officers ambush targets from buildings, cars or trees \u2013 was now official policy. \u201cThe objective wasn\u2019t to execute arrest warrants. The objective was to kill armed traffickers,\u201d Zaccone said, something police deny.<\/p>\n Tau\u00e3 Brito and others also question why their loved ones were killed, not arrested. \u201cThe aim was to kill everyone who tried to escape \u2013 and that\u2019s exactly what was done. All of those boys were executed,\u201d said Brito, who recently left the favela and moved to a beach town 100 miles away hoping to escape her pain. \u201cThere isn\u2019t a single place in Penha where I don\u2019t remember my son, where I don\u2019t see Wellington,\u201d she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. \u201cA piece of me is missing.\u201d<\/p>\n In the weeks after the operation, it became clear the purge had strengthened Rio\u2019s governor, with polls suggesting widespread public support.<\/p>\n The civil police chief, Felipe Curi, claimed favela residents were crying out for more such operations. Curi, who was shot in Alem\u00e3o in 2016, insisted the officers had acted in self-defence. Curi also claimed, without proof, that traffickers had decapitated Yago Ravel Rodrigues \u201cto incriminate the police\u201d.<\/p>\n Cida Santana, the mother of one of the dead men, mourns after bodies are brought to Vila Cruzeiro. Photograph: Alan Lima\/The Guardian<\/p>\n So far at least nine police officers have been charged over alleged offences on the day of the operation, including stealing a rifle, car parts and a mobile phone. Five of them have been arrested.<\/p>\n The public prosecutor\u2019s office is still investigating other possible police crimes \u2013 a challenge since, despite all officers being legally required to wear body cameras during operations, fewer than half were. Even so, there are about 3,000 hours of footage to review.<\/p>\n The late civil rights lawyer Paul Chevigny<\/a>, a pioneer in the study of police brutality, argued that when civilian deaths outnumber those of officers by 10 or 15 to one, it is an \u201calmost unequivocal\u201d statistical sign that lethal force is being used punitively, not defensively. In Penha, the ratio was 23 to one. \u201cThis is a disparity that raises serious concern,\u201d said Paulo Roberto Mello Cunha, one of the prosecutors investigating police conduct.<\/p>\n \u201cThe police\u2019s purpose is not to \u2018neutralise\u2019 people, but to arrest criminals,\u201d Cunha added. \u201cWe will only be able to call the operation a success if I can state that all who died were in situations in which officers acted in legitimate self-defence.\u201d<\/p>\n Authorities called the operation the greatest blow to the Red Command since it was founded in the 1970s in an Alcatraz-style prison nicknamed the \u201cCauldron of Hell\u201d, although a police intelligence chief conceded<\/a> it would have a \u201cminuscule\u201d impact.<\/p>\n When the Guardian returned to the Complexo da Penha a fortnight after the shootings, there was no sign of change. The gunmen were back. The barricades rebuilt. Drugs were on sale. Red Command signs ordering residents not to drop litter adorned the streets. Across Rio, the faction still rules hundreds of other favelas, controlling an area<\/a> almost the size of Sheffield or Washington DC.<\/p>\n While the bodies have been removed from outside his office, Correia was still processing what he called the most traumatic day in his 48 years of favela life.<\/p>\n The community leader was certain of one thing: Rio\u2019s conflict would never end. \u201cYou kill 100 traffickers and tomorrow another 100 will appear. Four police die today and tomorrow there will be four more in their place,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s an infinite war.\u201d<\/p>\n Tau\u00e3 Brito in the beach town she has relocated to after leaving the favela where her son, Wellington Brito Santos, was killed in October\u2019s operation. Photograph: Alan Lima\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Additional reporting by Melissa Cannabrava in Rio de Janeiro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Juliana Concei\u00e7\u00e3o startled awake as the first shots of an infamous day were fired in the Complexo da…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-420051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Barricades](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Barricades_blocked_almost_every_route_in_the_Complexo_da_Penha--fa97db41-1bda-4f56-bffa-e42eb56023ef.jpeg\")
Barricades blocked almost every route in the Complexo da Penha<\/p>\n![\"Heavily-armed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Heavily-armed_criminals_wearing_black_or_camouflage_outfits_climb_into_a_scrubland_area_known_as_Vac.jpeg\")
Heavily-armed criminals wearing black or camouflage outfits climb into a scrubland area known as Vacaria\u2018We\u2019re surrounded!\u2019<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/_Local_men_and_woman_in_the_forest_look_for_their_men--0c419e2e-1c10-4848-b583-92fcdff5eae3-2.0.0000.jpeg\")
Local men and women in the forest look for their men<\/p>\n