🔗 Share this article

The eyewitness

A reporter who observed the aftermath of a large-scale security raid in the Brazilian city has reported how community members brought back disfigured remains of the deceased individuals.

The bodies "kept piling up: the numbers kept rising", the eyewitness reported. The total contained security forces.

One of the bodies had been decapitated - while others appeared "totally disfigured", he explained. Several bodies showed what appeared to be knife injuries.

Over 120 individuals lost their lives during the security action on a criminal gang - the deadliest such raid Rio has experienced.

The eyewitness explained that residents first notified him about the operation early on Tuesday by local people living in Alemão, who contacted him informing him gunfire had erupted.

The photographer went to a local medical facility, where the casualties were arriving.

The photographer stated that the police stopped members of the press from accessing the affected area, where the operation were occurring.

"Police officers created a barrier and declared: 'Journalists doesn't get past here'."

Nevertheless, the eyewitness, who spent his childhood in the community, explained he managed to gain access into the restricted zone, where he stayed through the night.

He reported that Tuesday night, area inhabitants started looking the elevated terrain that separates the Penha neighborhood from the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for family members who were unaccounted for after the operation.

Community members living in Penha proceeded to place the recovered bodies in an open area - the documented evidence display the response of the gathered crowd.

"The violence of the situation shook me profoundly: the grief of loved ones, women collapsing, women carrying children, crying, outraged parents," the reporter recounted.

Bruno Itan

The governor of the state announced that the large-scale security action deploying about 2,500 law enforcement members was designed to halting a gang known as Comando Vermelho from growing their influence.

Originally, state authorities maintained that "60 suspects along with four officers" had been killed in the raid.

They have since said that their "preliminary" count shows that 117 alleged criminals have been killed.

Rio's public defender's office, which provides legal assistance to disadvantaged individuals, has put the final tally of fatalities at 132.

Based on expert analysis, the criminal organization stands as the sole illegal faction which in recent years has managed to make territorial gains across the region.

It is widely considered among the biggest criminal organizations nationally, together with First Capital Command, and has a history dating back more than 50 years.

Per reporter a specialist, who has long reported on crime in Rio over many years, Red Command "works as a system" with local criminal leaders affiliating with the group and becoming "commercial associates".

The gang concentrates largely on illegal drug trade, while also dealing in firearms, gold, energy resources, liquor smoking products.

According to the authorities, criminal affiliates have substantial firearms and authorities stated that during the raid, they came under attack via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The state leader of the state, Cláudio Castro, described gang affiliates as drug terrorists and referred to the security forces fatally injured in the action as "heroes".

But the number of casualties during the raid has come in for criticism with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights saying it was "shocked".

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

"There was no objective to kill anyone. We aimed to arrest them all alive," he stated.

He continued that the circumstances intensified due to the alleged criminals resisted aggressively: "It occurred of the retaliation they carried out and the overwhelming response by the illegal group."

The governor additionally stated that the bodies shown by residents in the area were "altered".

In a post through digital channels, he asserted that certain victims had been stripped of tactical gear that he stated they possessed "to transfer accusation onto the police".

A law enforcement representative of Rio's civil police force also said that "camouflage clothing, vests, and arms" were taken away from the victims and showed footage seemingly depicting a person removing tactical gear {off a corpse