Crackdown on drugs leaves nearly 50 dead

MANILA — Nearly 50 people suspected of using and selling drugs were killed by officers in the past two months, the Philippine National Police said Friday, contradicting earlier pronouncements that the government’s war on drugs would become less deadly.

The figure was the first released since President Rodrigo Duterte reactivated the police in December as the country’s lead agency in carrying out a no-holds-barred crackdown on illegal narcotics.

Between Dec. 5, 2017 — when the police took part in an operation named Double Barrels Reloaded — and Thursday, officers conducted 3,253 raids, leading to the arrests of an unnamed number of “high-value targets” and the deaths of 46 people, the police said in a statement.