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The eyewitness

An eyewitness who witnessed the consequences of an extensive law enforcement action in the Brazilian city has described how residents returned with badly injured victims of people who lost their lives.

The victims "kept coming: the numbers kept rising", the eyewitness reported. Among them were security forces.

A particular victim was discovered headless - additional victims were "completely mutilated", he reported. Several bodies showed evidence of blade trauma.

In excess of 120 victims lost their lives in the Tuesday operation against a criminal group - the deadliest such raid Rio has experienced.

The eyewitness reported that he initially learned concerning the action in the early hours by residents from the Alemão area, who contacted him alerting him gunfire had erupted.

The eyewitness traveled to the healthcare center, where the casualties were coming in.

The photographer stated that law enforcement prevented journalists from going into the operation zone, where the security measures was under way.

"Security forces established a perimeter and declared: 'The press doesn't get past here'."

However, the photographer, who grew up in that neighborhood, explained he succeeded to gain access into the restricted zone, where he remained until dawn.

He described that evening, area inhabitants began to search the elevated terrain that borders the community of Penha and the adjacent Alemão area for relatives whose whereabouts were unknown after the operation.

Local people of the Penha neighbourhood proceeded to place the recovered bodies in a square - and Itan's photos display the reaction of the gathered crowd.

"The brutality of it all affected me a lot: the sorrow of relatives, women collapsing, expectant spouses, crying, angry family members," the eyewitness remembered.

Bruno Itan

The official of the state stated that the large-scale security action deploying about 2,500 security personnel was aimed at preventing a criminal group called Red Command from expanding its territory.

At first, local officials claimed that "60 suspects plus four law enforcement personnel" lost their lives in the operation.

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

The public legal service, that offers legal help to disadvantaged individuals, has estimated the final tally of casualties to be 132.

According to researchers, Red Command is the only criminal group that in the past few years has been able to make territorial gains in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Experts commonly view among the biggest criminal organizations nationally, together with another major gang, with a background spanning over five decades.

According to Brazilian journalist an expert, who has been covering criminal activity in the city extensively, the gang "works as a system" with local criminal leaders joining the organization and serving as "business partners".

The criminal group focuses mainly on narcotics distribution, but also smuggles weapons, precious metals, fuel, liquor and tobacco.

Based on official reports, organization members possess significant weaponry and officials reported that during the raid, they encountered resistance using drone-delivered explosives.

The governor of the state, Cláudio Castro, labeled Red Command members as drug terrorists and described the law enforcement personnel killed in the raid as "heroes".

However, the count of fatalities in the security action has received condemnation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stating they were "shocked".

During a press briefing on Wednesday, the state leader defended the police force.

"We did not plan to cause fatalities. We wanted to take suspects into custody without harm," he declared.

He further explained that the events had escalated because the suspects resisted aggressively: "It was a consequence of the counterattack they executed and the disproportionate use of force from the gang members."

The governor additionally stated that the casualties presented by community members in the area had been "manipulated".

Through a message on social media, he said that certain victims had been taken of military-style attire which he claimed they wore "in order to shift blame toward law enforcement".

Felipe Curi of Rio's civil police force additionally stated that "camouflage clothing, vests, and arms" had been removed from the victims and showed footage seemingly depicting a person removing tactical gear {off a corpse