🔗 Share this article

The eyewitness

A photographer who documented the aftermath of an extensive security raid in the Brazilian city has reported how residents returned with disfigured remains of those who had died.

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

One of the bodies was discovered headless - additional victims were "severely damaged", he explained. Several bodies showed evidence of blade trauma.

In excess of 120 victims lost their lives during Tuesday's raid on a criminal gang - the most lethal operation in the city.

The photographer reported that he was first alerted to the raid Tuesday morning by residents of the Alemão neighbourhood, who sent him messages alerting him an armed confrontation was occurring.

The photographer traveled to a local medical facility, where the victims were arriving.

The photographer stated that the police stopped members of the press from accessing the affected area, where the operation was under way.

"Security forces established a perimeter and said: 'Media representatives cannot proceed beyond this point'."

However, the photographer, who spent his childhood in the area, explained he succeeded to gain access into the restricted zone, where he remained until dawn.

He described during the night, area inhabitants began to search the hillside which divides the Penha neighborhood from the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for loved ones whose whereabouts were unknown after the operation.

Local people of the Penha neighbourhood organized the discovered victims in an open area - and Itan's photos show the emotions of the gathered crowd.

"The harsh reality of it all impacted me profoundly: the grief of relatives, mothers fainting, expectant spouses, crying, furious relatives," the eyewitness remembered.

Bruno Itan

The official of Rio state declared that the extensive law enforcement effort deploying about 2,500 officers was aimed at stopping an illegal organization known as Comando Vermelho from growing their influence.

At first, local officials stated that sixty individuals and four police officers" lost their lives in the raid.

They have since said that their "preliminary" count indicates that 117 alleged criminals were fatally injured.

Rio's public defender's office, that gives legal support to the poor, has put the final tally of fatalities to be 132.

Per investigative findings, the criminal organization is the only criminal group that recently has been able to make territorial gains across the region.

It is widely considered as a major illegal faction in Brazil, alongside First Capital Command, and has a history dating back more than 50 years.

Per Brazilian journalist a specialist, who has been covering criminal activity in the city for years, the criminal organization "works as a system" with local criminal leaders joining the organization and becoming "commercial associates".

The organization focuses mainly on narcotics distribution, additionally trafficking guns, precious metals, petroleum products, liquor smoking products.

According to the authorities, criminal affiliates possess significant weaponry and police said that during the raid, they encountered resistance via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The official of the region, the government representative, characterized gang affiliates as "narcoterrorists" and described the security forces killed in the raid as courageous individuals.

However, the count of casualties during the raid has come in for criticism from UN human rights officials stating they were "appalled".

At a news conference the next day, Governor Castro supported law enforcement.

"We did not plan to cause fatalities. We intended to arrest them all alive," he stated.

He continued that the events had escalated due to the alleged criminals resisted aggressively: "It resulted of the resistance they executed and the excessive violence from the gang members."

The state leader additionally stated that the bodies displayed by locals in the area had been "tampered with".

Via a statement on online platforms, he claimed that particular individuals had been removed of the camouflage clothing which he claimed they wore "to transfer accusation onto the police".

A law enforcement representative of Rio's civil police force also said that "camouflage clothing, protective equipment, and arms" were stripped from the casualties and presented video appearing to show an individual stripping military attire {off a corpse