🔗 Share this article

The photographer

A photographer who witnessed the consequences of a massive Brazilian police operation in the metropolitan area has described how community members returned with badly injured victims of people who lost their lives.

The bodies "continued arriving: 25, 30, 35, 40, 45...", Bruno Itan stated. The total contained security forces.

One individual was found without a head - while others appeared "completely mutilated", he said. Numerous victims displayed what appeared to be knife injuries.

In excess of 120 victims were killed in the Tuesday operation against a criminal group - the bloodiest action Rio has experienced.

The eyewitness stated that residents first notified him to the raid Tuesday morning by community members of the Alemão neighbourhood, who reached out informing him there was a shoot-out.

The reporter went to the Getúlio Vargas hospital, where the casualties were being brought.

The photographer stated that the police prevented journalists from entering the affected area, where the operation were taking place.

"Security forces established a perimeter and said: 'Journalists doesn't get past here'."

However, the photographer, who grew up in that neighborhood, stated he managed to make his way into the restricted zone, where he continued until the next morning.

He explained during the night, community members began to search the elevated terrain which divides the Penha neighborhood from the adjacent Alemão area for relatives who were unaccounted for following the security action.

Residents living in Penha organized the discovered victims in a public space - and Itan's photos display the reaction of those present.

"The violence of what occurred impacted me a lot: the sorrow of relatives, women collapsing, pregnant wives, crying, furious relatives," the reporter recounted.

The eyewitness

The official of Rio state announced that the extensive law enforcement effort with approximately 2,500 law enforcement members was designed to preventing a criminal group known as Comando Vermelho from increasing their control.

At first, state authorities maintained that sixty individuals along with four officers" had been killed in the operation.

Officials subsequently stated that initial estimates indicates that 117 "suspects" have been killed.

Rio's public defender's office, that gives legal support to the poor, has calculated the overall count of people killed to be 132.

Per investigative findings, Red Command stands as the sole illegal faction that recently has been able to make territorial gains in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

It is widely considered as a major illegal faction nationally, alongside a rival criminal group, and has a history dating back more than 50 years.

Per correspondent an expert, who has long reported on crime in Rio over many years, the gang "operates like a franchise" with neighborhood bosses affiliating with the group and becoming "business partners".

The criminal group engages primarily in illegal drug trade, but also smuggles guns, precious metals, energy resources, alcohol cigarettes.

Based on official reports, gang members are well armed and officials reported that during the raid, they encountered resistance using drone-delivered explosives.

The official of Rio state, the government representative, labeled gang affiliates as drug terrorists and referred to the four police officers fatally injured in the action as "heroes".

However, the count of fatalities in the operation has received condemnation from international human rights authorities saying it was "horrified".

In a media appearance on Wednesday, the official defended the police force.

"We did not plan to cause fatalities. We aimed to take suspects into custody without harm," he stated.

He continued that the situation had escalated because the suspects had retaliated: "It resulted of the counterattack they implemented and the overwhelming response by the illegal group."

The official also said that the bodies displayed by locals in Penha had been "tampered with".

Via a statement on social media, he asserted that certain victims had been taken of tactical gear that he stated they possessed "in order to shift blame to security forces".

Felipe Curi from the police department further reported that military attire, protective equipment, and weapons" were stripped from the bodies and showed footage apparently demonstrating a man stripping military attire {off a corpse