🔗 Share this article

The photographer

A photographer who witnessed the consequences of a massive Brazilian police operation in the Brazilian city has described how community members returned with badly injured victims of those who had died.

The bodies "kept piling up: 25, 30, 35, 40, 45...", Bruno Itan stated. The total contained law enforcement personnel.

A particular victim was found without a head - while others appeared "severely damaged", he reported. Numerous victims displayed evidence of blade trauma.

In excess of 120 victims were killed in the Tuesday operation targeting an illegal organization - the deadliest such raid the municipality has seen.

Bruno Itan reported that he initially learned to the raid Tuesday morning by local people of the Alemão neighbourhood, who sent him messages alerting him an armed confrontation was occurring.

The eyewitness went to the healthcare center, where the bodies were being brought.

Itan explained that law enforcement stopped members of the press from accessing the operation zone, where the security measures were occurring.

"Security forces established a perimeter and declared: 'The press are not allowed to pass'."

Nevertheless, the eyewitness, who grew up in the community, stated he was able to gain access past the security perimeter, where he remained until dawn.

He reported that Tuesday night, area inhabitants started looking the mountainous area which divides Penha from the neighboring Alemão community for family members whose whereabouts were unknown after the operation.

Community members from the Penha area arranged the recovered bodies in an open area - the documented evidence display the reaction of the gathered crowd.

"The violence of what occurred affected me profoundly: the grief of relatives, mothers fainting, expectant spouses, sobbing, angry family members," the photographer recalled.

Bruno Itan

The governor of Rio state stated that the large-scale security action involving around 2,500 officers was designed to halting an illegal organization called Comando Vermelho from expanding its territory.

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

Officials subsequently stated that initial estimates indicates that 117 individuals lost their lives.

Rio's public defender's office, that gives legal support to low-income residents, has estimated the overall count of people killed as 132.

Per investigative findings, the gang is the only criminal group that in the past few years has been able to make territorial gains throughout Rio state.

It is widely considered among the biggest criminal organizations in the country, alongside another major gang, and has a history extending half a century.

Per Brazilian journalist Rafael Soares, who has been covering illegal operations in Rio for years, Red Command "functions as a network" with neighborhood bosses joining the organization and acting as "operational allies".

The gang focuses mainly on narcotics distribution, additionally trafficking firearms, precious metals, petroleum products, alcohol and tobacco.

Per law enforcement statements, organization members possess significant weaponry and police said that during the raid, they encountered resistance from explosive-laden drones.

The governor of Rio state, Cláudio Castro, labeled Red Command members as drug terrorists and called the four police officers fatally injured in the action as brave public servants.

But the number of people killed during the raid has received condemnation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights saying it was "shocked".

In a media appearance on Wednesday, the state leader supported law enforcement.

"It wasn't our intention to result in deaths. We wanted to arrest them all alive," he said.

He added that the situation intensified as the individuals fought back: "It occurred of the retaliation they carried out and the overwhelming response by the illegal group."

The official also said that the bodies shown by residents in Penha had been "manipulated".

In a post through digital channels, he asserted that particular individuals had been stripped of tactical gear which he claimed they wore "in order to shift blame toward law enforcement".

A police official representing security forces further reported that tactical gear, protective equipment, and arms" were taken away from the victims and showed footage seemingly depicting a man stripping military attire {off a corpse