The victims kept arriving - reporter shares deadly Rio security action

The photographer

An eyewitness who observed the consequences of a large-scale Brazilian police operation in the metropolitan area has described how community members came back with badly injured victims of the deceased individuals.

The victims "continued arriving: the numbers kept rising", Bruno Itan reported. The total contained security forces.

A particular victim was found without a head - additional victims were "completely mutilated", he said. Several bodies showed evidence of knife injuries.

In excess of 120 victims were killed during Tuesday's raid against a criminal group - the deadliest such raid the municipality has seen.

The eyewitness stated that residents first notified him to the raid in the early hours by residents from the Alemão area, who contacted him informing him gunfire had erupted.

The eyewitness went to the healthcare center, where the victims were arriving.

The photographer stated that law enforcement stopped members of the press from accessing the Penha neighborhood, where the operation were occurring.

"Security forces established a perimeter and announced: 'Media representatives doesn't get past here'."

Nevertheless, the eyewitness, who was raised in that neighborhood, stated he succeeded to gain access into the restricted zone, where he remained until the next morning.

He described during the night, local residents began to search the hillside that borders the Penha neighborhood from the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for relatives who had been missing after the operation.

Local people from the Penha area organized the located casualties in an open area - the photographer's images reveal the reaction of those present.

"The brutality of it all affected me profoundly: the grief of loved ones, women collapsing, expectant spouses, weeping, outraged parents," the photographer recalled.

The eyewitness

The official of the state stated that the extensive law enforcement effort with approximately 2,500 security personnel was aimed at stopping a gang known as Comando Vermelho from increasing their control.

Initially, local officials stated that sixty individuals and four police officers" lost their lives in the operation.

They have since said that early calculations shows that 117 individuals have been killed.

The legal assistance organization, that gives legal support to low-income residents, has estimated the overall count of casualties as 132.

According to researchers, the gang stands as the sole illegal faction that in the past few years has managed to expand its territory across the region.

Experts commonly view one of the two largest gangs nationally, together with another major gang, featuring a timeline dating back more than 50 years.

Per Brazilian journalist Rafael Soares, who has been covering criminal activity in the city extensively, the gang "works as a system" with area gang leaders joining the organization and serving as "business partners".

The criminal group focuses mainly on illegal drug trade, while also dealing in guns, gold, petroleum products, liquor smoking products.

Based on official reports, gang members possess significant weaponry and police said that during the raid, they came under attack via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The state leader of Rio state, the government representative, described Red Command members as criminal extremists and referred to the law enforcement personnel who died during the operation as courageous individuals.

However, the count of people killed in the operation has faced scrutiny from UN human rights officials saying it was "shocked".

During a press briefing the next day, the official supported law enforcement.

"It wasn't our intention to cause fatalities. We wanted to arrest them all alive," he declared.

He added that the events worsened because the suspects resisted aggressively: "It was a consequence of the resistance they executed and the overwhelming response by those criminals."

The official also said that the bodies presented by community members in the neighborhood were "altered".

In a post on online platforms, he said that certain victims had been stripped of tactical gear which he claimed they wore "to redirect responsibility to security forces".

A law enforcement representative representing security forces additionally stated that military attire, body armor, and arms" had been removed from the casualties and presented video appearing to show an individual cutting camouflage clothing {off a corpse