🔗 Share this article

The eyewitness

An eyewitness who documented the aftermath of an extensive Brazilian police operation in the metropolitan area has recounted how community members returned with badly injured victims of people who lost their lives.

The victims "kept coming: the numbers kept rising", the photographer stated. They included security forces.

A particular victim had been decapitated - additional victims were "severely damaged", he said. Many also had what he described as stab wounds.

More than 120 people lost their lives during the security action against a criminal group - the bloodiest action Rio has experienced.

Bruno Itan reported that he initially learned to the raid Tuesday morning by residents living in Alemão, who reached out telling him gunfire had erupted.

The reporter went to the healthcare center, where the victims were coming in.

The eyewitness reported that the police prevented journalists from entering the operation zone, where the police action were taking place.

"Police officers created a barrier and said: 'The press are not allowed to pass'."

Nevertheless, the eyewitness, who was raised in the area, explained he was able to gain access past the security perimeter, where he stayed until dawn.

He reported during the night, local residents started looking the hillside that separates the community of Penha and the adjacent Alemão area for relatives whose whereabouts were unknown since the police raid.

Community members of the Penha neighbourhood organized the recovered bodies in a square - the documented evidence display the response of the gathered crowd.

"The brutality of what occurred shook me profoundly: the pain of relatives, parents losing consciousness, women carrying children, sobbing, angry family members," the photographer recalled.

Bruno Itan

The official of the region declared that the large-scale security action with approximately 2,500 law enforcement members was aimed at preventing an illegal organization known as Comando Vermelho from expanding its territory.

Originally, local officials maintained that "60 suspects and four police officers" lost their lives in the raid.

Officials subsequently stated that initial estimates shows that 117 individuals were fatally injured.

The legal assistance organization, that offers legal help to low-income residents, has calculated the total number of casualties at 132.

Based on expert analysis, the gang represents the unique criminal entity that in the past few years has been able to increase its control across the region.

Experts commonly view among the biggest criminal organizations in the country, in company with another major gang, with a background dating back more than 50 years.

Based on reporter a specialist, with extensive experience documenting criminal activity in the city over many years, Red Command "functions as a network" with neighborhood bosses joining the organization and becoming "operational allies".

The gang focuses mainly on illegal drug trade, additionally trafficking firearms, gold, fuel, liquor smoking products.

According to the authorities, gang members are well armed and authorities stated that while the action was underway, they came under attack using drone-delivered explosives.

The governor of the state, the political leader, labeled organization participants as drug terrorists and described the four police officers fatally injured in the action as courageous individuals.

But the number of fatalities during the raid has faced scrutiny with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressing they felt "horrified".

During a press briefing the following day, the state leader supported law enforcement.

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

He further explained that the circumstances intensified because the suspects resisted aggressively: "It occurred of the counterattack they implemented and the disproportionate use of force by the illegal group."

The state leader further reported that the casualties displayed by locals in the neighborhood had been "tampered with".

In a post on social media, he said that particular individuals had been taken of tactical gear that he stated they possessed "to redirect responsibility toward law enforcement".

Felipe Curi from the police department also said that tactical gear, vests, and weapons" were taken away from the bodies and showed footage apparently demonstrating a person stripping military attire {off a corpse