Gun battles between hundreds of Brazilian police and drug gangs in two Rio de Janeiro shantytowns yesterday killed 12 people.
About 400 police officers entered the Coreia and Senador Camara slums to search for weapons and serve arrest warrants.
Eleven suspected gang members were arrested, and police seized a machine gun, rifles, pistols, grenades, ammunition, cocaine and marijuana, it was reported. Police said 10 of the dead were drug traffickers.
An officer and a four-year-old child were also killed.
Human rights groups accuse Rio's police forces of widespread corruption and violence and say they routinely justify killing civilians by alleging they were gang members resisting arrest.
Yesterday's operation was the bloodiest since police killed 19 alleged traffickers in the Alemao slum in May.
Rio is one of the world's most violent cities, with an annual murder rate of about 50 killed per 100,000 inhabitants. Most of the killings take place in the city's shantytowns, which often are controlled by heavily armed gangs.
AP