🔗 Share this article

The photographer

An eyewitness who witnessed the aftermath of a massive law enforcement action in the metropolitan area has recounted how community members returned with badly injured victims of those who had died.

The casualties "kept piling up: the count kept increasing", the eyewitness stated. The total contained law enforcement personnel.

One of the bodies had been decapitated - additional victims were "totally disfigured", he said. Many also had what he described as knife injuries.

In excess of 120 victims were fatally injured in the Tuesday operation targeting an illegal organization - the bloodiest action in the city.

The eyewitness explained that he was first alerted about the operation in the early hours by community members of the Alemão neighbourhood, who sent him messages telling him an armed confrontation was occurring.

The reporter traveled to the Getúlio Vargas hospital, where the casualties were coming in.

Itan explained that law enforcement prevented journalists from going into the Penha neighborhood, where the security measures were occurring.

"Security forces formed a line and announced: 'Journalists doesn't get past here'."

However, the photographer, who spent his childhood in the area, explained he was able to gain access into the cordoned-off area, where he remained until dawn.

He described during the night, community members began to search the mountainous area that borders the Penha neighborhood from the neighboring Alemão community for relatives who were unaccounted for after the operation.

Local people of the Penha neighbourhood organized the discovered victims in a square - and Itan's photos display the response of the people there.

"The brutality of what occurred impacted me profoundly: the sorrow of relatives, parents losing consciousness, expectant spouses, crying, outraged parents," the photographer recalled.

Bruno Itan

The state leader of the state stated that the large-scale security action deploying about 2,500 law enforcement members was aimed at stopping a criminal group known as Red Command from growing their influence.

Initially, the Rio state government maintained that sixty alleged criminals plus four law enforcement personnel" lost their lives in the operation.

Authorities later reported that initial estimates shows that 117 individuals lost their lives.

The legal assistance organization, that gives legal support to the poor, has estimated the final tally of people killed to be 132.

Per investigative findings, Red Command stands as the sole illegal faction which in recent years has been able to expand its territory in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Experts commonly view as a major illegal faction nationally, alongside First Capital Command, and has a history spanning over five decades.

Based on Brazilian journalist a specialist, who has long reported on criminal activity in the city for years, the criminal organization "operates like a franchise" with area gang leaders forming part of the gang and acting as "business partners".

The criminal group engages primarily in illegal drug trade, but also smuggles guns, valuable minerals, energy resources, beverages and tobacco.

According to the authorities, organization members possess significant weaponry and officials reported that while the action was underway, they came under attack via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The governor of the region, the government representative, labeled gang affiliates as drug terrorists and described the security forces killed in the raid as brave public servants.

However, the count of fatalities during the raid has come in for criticism from UN human rights officials expressing they felt "appalled".

During a press briefing the following day, the state leader defended the police force.

"We did not plan to result in deaths. We wanted to arrest them all alive," he declared.

He continued that the circumstances had escalated as the individuals resisted aggressively: "It resulted of the counterattack they implemented and the overwhelming response by the illegal group."

The governor additionally stated that the victims shown by residents in the area were "altered".

In a post through digital channels, he said that particular individuals had been taken of military-style attire that he stated they possessed "to redirect responsibility toward law enforcement".

Felipe Curi of Rio's civil police force further reported that "camouflage clothing, vests, and firearms" were stripped from the bodies and presented video seemingly depicting an individual cutting camouflage clothing {off a corpse