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The eyewitness

A photographer who documented the results of a massive law enforcement action in Rio de Janeiro has described how community members came back with badly injured victims of the deceased individuals.

The victims "continued arriving: 25, 30, 35, 40, 45...", the photographer described. They included security forces.

One individual was discovered headless - while others appeared "completely mutilated", he said. Several bodies showed evidence of blade trauma.

In excess of 120 victims were fatally injured during the security action against a criminal group - the deadliest such raid in the city.

The photographer reported that he initially learned concerning the action in the early hours by local people from the Alemão area, who sent him messages informing him an armed confrontation was occurring.

The reporter made his way to the Getúlio Vargas hospital, where the victims were being brought.

Itan explained that security forces stopped members of the press from accessing the Penha neighborhood, where the security measures was under way.

"Law enforcement personnel established a perimeter and said: 'Media representatives cannot proceed beyond this point'."

However, the photographer, who was raised in the area, explained he succeeded to enter past the security perimeter, where he remained until dawn.

He explained that Tuesday night, local residents began to search the mountainous area which divides the Penha neighborhood from the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for loved ones who had been missing after the operation.

Residents living in Penha arranged the recovered bodies in an open area - the photographer's images reveal the reaction of the people there.

"The harsh reality of it all impacted me profoundly: the grief of loved ones, women collapsing, pregnant wives, sobbing, furious relatives," the eyewitness remembered.

The photographer

The official of Rio state stated that the extensive law enforcement effort deploying about 2,500 officers was intended to stopping a criminal group referred to as Red Command from expanding its territory.

Initially, the Rio state government claimed that sixty individuals and four police officers" were fatally injured in the raid.

They have since said that their "preliminary" count shows that 117 individuals were fatally injured.

Rio's public defender's office, which provides legal assistance to disadvantaged individuals, has calculated the overall count of casualties to be 132.

According to researchers, the criminal organization is the only criminal group which in recent years has managed to make territorial gains across the region.

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

Per correspondent a specialist, who has long reported on crime in Rio for years, Red Command "functions as a network" with neighborhood bosses affiliating with the group and becoming "business partners".

The gang focuses mainly on narcotics distribution, while also dealing in guns, valuable minerals, energy resources, liquor and tobacco.

Per law enforcement statements, gang members are well armed and police said that during the raid, they faced assaults via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The governor of the state, the government representative, characterized Red Command members as criminal extremists and described the security forces fatally injured in the action as courageous individuals.

However, the count of casualties in the operation has faced scrutiny from UN human rights officials expressing they felt "appalled".

At a news conference the following day, the state leader defended the police force.

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

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

The governor further reported that the bodies shown by residents in the neighborhood were "altered".

Via a statement on social media, he said that certain victims had been taken of the camouflage clothing that he stated they possessed "to transfer accusation onto the police".

A police official from the police department additionally stated that military attire, body armor, and firearms" were stripped from the victims and presented video seemingly depicting a person cutting camouflage clothing {off a corpse