🔗 Share this article

The eyewitness

A reporter who documented the aftermath of an extensive Brazilian police operation in the metropolitan area has recounted how community members came back with mutilated bodies of people who lost their lives.

The casualties "kept piling up: the numbers kept rising", the eyewitness stated. The total contained security forces.

One individual was discovered headless - while others appeared "totally disfigured", he reported. Many also had what appeared to be blade trauma.

More than 120 people lost their lives during Tuesday's raid against a criminal group - the deadliest such raid Rio has experienced.

The photographer stated that he initially learned to the raid Tuesday morning by community members living in Alemão, who reached out informing him an armed confrontation was occurring.

The eyewitness made his way to the healthcare center, where the bodies were coming in.

Itan explained that security forces prevented journalists from going into the operation zone, where the operation was under way.

"Police officers established a perimeter and declared: 'Media representatives are not allowed to pass'."

Nevertheless, the eyewitness, who spent his childhood in the community, reported he succeeded to gain access into the restricted zone, where he continued through the night.

He explained that Tuesday night, area inhabitants commenced searching the mountainous area that separates the community of Penha and the neighboring Alemão community for loved ones who were unaccounted for since the police raid.

Residents of the Penha neighbourhood organized the located casualties in an open area - the documented evidence show the response of the gathered crowd.

"The violence of what occurred affected me a lot: the pain of relatives, mothers fainting, expectant spouses, weeping, furious relatives," the eyewitness remembered.

The eyewitness

The governor of Rio state announced that the massive police operation with approximately 2,500 security personnel was designed to halting a criminal group known as the criminal faction from expanding its territory.

At first, the Rio state government claimed that sixty individuals and four police officers" lost their lives in the raid.

Officials subsequently stated that early calculations suggests that 117 alleged criminals lost their lives.

The legal assistance organization, that offers legal help to low-income residents, has put the overall count of people killed at 132.

According to researchers, the gang represents the unique criminal entity that recently has been able to expand its territory in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Experts commonly view one of the two largest gangs in Brazil, in company with another major gang, with a background dating back more than 50 years.

Per Brazilian journalist Rafael Soares, who has long reported on crime in Rio for years, the criminal organization "operates like a franchise" with area gang leaders affiliating with the group and acting as "business partners".

The criminal group engages primarily in narcotics distribution, additionally trafficking weapons, precious metals, fuel, alcohol cigarettes.

Based on official reports, criminal affiliates possess significant weaponry and officials reported that while the action was underway, they came under attack via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The official of the region, the government representative, labeled Red Command members as drug terrorists and described the law enforcement personnel fatally injured in the action as brave public servants.

Nevertheless, the total of casualties in the security action has faced scrutiny from international human rights authorities expressing they felt "horrified".

During a press briefing on Wednesday, the official justified security actions.

"We did not plan to result in deaths. We intended to take suspects into custody without harm," he declared.

He further explained that the circumstances worsened because the suspects fought back: "It resulted of the retaliation they executed and the disproportionate use of force by the illegal group."

The governor further reported that the victims presented by community members in the area were "altered".

In a post on online platforms, he claimed that particular individuals had been removed of the camouflage clothing which he claimed they wore "to transfer accusation toward law enforcement".

A police official from the police department also said that tactical gear, protective equipment, and weapons" were stripped from the bodies and displayed evidence apparently demonstrating an individual cutting camouflage clothing {off a corpse