🔗 Share this article

The eyewitness

An eyewitness who witnessed the aftermath of an extensive Brazilian police operation in Rio de Janeiro has reported how community members returned with mutilated bodies of those who had died.

The bodies "continued arriving: the count kept increasing", Bruno Itan reported. Among them were those of police officers.

A particular victim was found without a head - additional victims were "totally disfigured", he explained. Numerous victims displayed evidence of knife injuries.

More than 120 people were fatally injured during Tuesday's raid targeting an illegal organization - the bloodiest action the municipality has seen.

The photographer explained that residents first notified him to the raid Tuesday morning by local people of the Alemão neighbourhood, who contacted him telling him an armed confrontation was occurring.

The reporter traveled to a local medical facility, where the bodies were arriving.

The photographer stated that law enforcement blocked media personnel from entering the Penha neighborhood, where the operation was under way.

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

However, the photographer, who spent his childhood in that neighborhood, reported he succeeded to gain access past the security perimeter, where he stayed through the night.

He described that evening, community members commenced searching the hillside that borders the community of Penha and the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for family members who were unaccounted for following the security action.

Residents living in Penha organized the recovered bodies in a square - and Itan's photos show the reaction of the people there.

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

The photographer

The governor of the region announced that the extensive law enforcement effort deploying about 2,500 security personnel was intended to preventing a gang referred to as Comando Vermelho from increasing their control.

Originally, local officials stated that "60 suspects along with four officers" lost their lives in the raid.

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

The public legal service, which provides legal assistance to low-income residents, has put the total number of casualties as 132.

Based on expert analysis, the gang represents the unique criminal entity that in the past few years has managed to make territorial gains throughout Rio state.

Experts commonly view as a major illegal faction in Brazil, alongside a rival criminal group, featuring a timeline spanning over five decades.

Per Brazilian journalist an expert, who has long reported on criminal activity in the city for years, Red Command "works as a system" with area gang leaders forming part of the gang and acting as "business partners".

The organization engages primarily in narcotics distribution, while also dealing in firearms, valuable minerals, fuel, beverages smoking products.

Based on official reports, organization members are well armed and police said that during the raid, they faced assaults via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The governor of the region, Cláudio Castro, described Red Command members as drug terrorists and referred to the four police officers fatally injured in the action as courageous individuals.

Nevertheless, the total of fatalities in the security action has faced scrutiny with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressing they felt "horrified".

At a news conference on Wednesday, Governor Castro defended the police force.

"We did not plan to cause fatalities. We wanted to arrest them all alive," he declared.

He further explained that the situation had escalated because the suspects had retaliated: "It was a consequence of the retaliation they carried out and the disproportionate use of force by those criminals."

The state leader further reported that the bodies shown by residents in the area had been "tampered with".

Via a statement through digital channels, he said that certain victims had been removed 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 additionally stated that military attire, protective equipment, and arms" were taken away from the casualties and showed footage appearing to show a man removing tactical gear {off a corpse