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The photographer

A reporter who observed the consequences of an extensive security raid in the metropolitan area has recounted how community members came back with badly injured victims of the deceased individuals.

The victims "continued arriving: the numbers kept rising", Bruno Itan reported. The total contained security forces.

One of the bodies was found without a head - while others appeared "totally disfigured", he said. Numerous victims displayed what appeared to be knife injuries.

Over 120 individuals lost their lives in the Tuesday operation targeting an illegal organization - the bloodiest action the municipality has seen.

The eyewitness stated that he was first alerted concerning the action Tuesday morning by local people of the Alemão neighbourhood, who sent him messages telling him gunfire had erupted.

The reporter made his way to the healthcare center, where the casualties were coming in.

Itan explained that law enforcement prevented journalists from accessing the Penha neighborhood, where the operation were occurring.

"Law enforcement personnel formed a line and announced: 'The press are not allowed to pass'."

Nevertheless, the eyewitness, who spent his childhood in that neighborhood, stated he managed to enter past the security perimeter, where he remained until dawn.

He described that evening, local residents started looking the hillside that borders the community of Penha and the adjacent Alemão area for family members whose whereabouts were unknown after the operation.

Local people from the Penha area proceeded to place the located casualties in a square - and Itan's photos reveal the emotions of the people there.

"The brutality of the situation affected me deeply: the sorrow of the families, mothers fainting, pregnant wives, sobbing, outraged parents," the eyewitness remembered.

Bruno Itan

The official of the region stated that the extensive law enforcement effort deploying about 2,500 officers was designed to preventing a gang known as Comando Vermelho from expanding its territory.

Initially, local officials claimed that sixty alleged criminals plus four law enforcement personnel" had been killed during the action.

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

The public legal service, that gives legal support to the poor, has estimated the total number of casualties to be 132.

According to researchers, the criminal organization stands as the sole illegal faction that in the past few years has been able to expand its territory in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Experts commonly view among the biggest criminal organizations nationally, together with a rival criminal group, featuring a timeline dating back more than 50 years.

Per correspondent an expert, who has been covering illegal operations in Rio extensively, Red Command "works as a system" with area gang leaders affiliating with the group and becoming "commercial associates".

The gang engages primarily in narcotics distribution, additionally trafficking weapons, precious metals, fuel, alcohol smoking products.

Based on official reports, organization members possess significant weaponry and police said that while the action was underway, they encountered resistance via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The official of Rio state, the political leader, described organization participants as "narcoterrorists" and described the security forces fatally injured in the action as brave public servants.

But the number of fatalities in the security action has come in for criticism with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights saying it was "appalled".

In a media appearance the next day, Governor Castro supported law enforcement.

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

He added that the circumstances intensified because the suspects had retaliated: "It was a consequence of the retaliation they carried out and the overwhelming response from the gang members."

The governor additionally stated that the casualties displayed by locals in the neighborhood had been "manipulated".

In a post on social media, he claimed that some of them had been stripped of the camouflage clothing that he stated they possessed "in order to shift blame to security forces".

Felipe Curi of Rio's civil police force further reported that military attire, body armor, and firearms" had been removed from the bodies and showed footage apparently demonstrating a person cutting camouflage clothing {off a corpse