The joint operation by civilian and military forces in the state of Rio de Janeiro, which took place this Tuesday in the city's capital, has resulted in at least 121 deaths – four of them police officers – according to official figures. However, the O Globo network is already reporting 134. The number of fatalities has at least doubled compared to the official figures provided yesterday by the authorities, after more than seventy bodies were lined up this Wednesday in a square in the Penha favela neighborhood, one of the two areas where more than 20 members of the security forces were killed. Despite the brutality of the intervention, considered the deadliest in the city's history due to the enormous cost in human lives, the state governor, Cláudio Castro, has called the mega-operation in Penha and Alemão, the other favela complex where security forces also engaged in bloodshed, a "success." According to Castro, the clashes occurred in wooded areas, which—he argued—proves that there were no civilians among the victims. What the governor has not clarified is why the initially announced death toll of 64 has not been modified, at least for the moment, nor has he commented on the more than 70 bodies that residents have piled up in Penha. Castro has defended his handling of the victim count and stated that only bodies arriving at the Institute of Legal Medicine are considered official victims. This avoids "a war of numbers," he said. In fact, the exact number of victims will take time to be known, which explains the difference between the official figures (121) and those reported by the media.

It was the summer of 1962. The poet Vinícius de Moraes was meeting his friend Tom Jobim at the Bar Veloso in Ipanema. This neighborhood was becoming fashionable. For years it had been an isolated fishing area, until a tunnel was built to connect it to downtown Rio de Janeiro, which caused many young people to move to Ipanema beachfront because it was cheaper. Many were musicians who played at the botecos, the bars in the area, improvising new rhythms. De Moraes and Jobim were leading a musical revolution, that of the birth of the new bag, along with people like Salvador de Bahia singer João Gilberto, who had come to live in Rio. Bar Veloso was just an ordinary place on a corner of Montenegro Street. That couple went because it was close to Jobim's apartment, for another reason. It was here that they saw a brunette girl walking toward the beach who used to buy tobacco every day at the bar. Every day they had a coffee or a glass of wine, she would pass by. And thus, the most famous Brazilian song was born: Girl from Ipanema.