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The photographer

An eyewitness who witnessed the consequences of a massive security raid in Rio de Janeiro has reported how local people brought back mutilated bodies of people who lost their lives.

The victims "kept piling up: the numbers kept rising", Bruno Itan reported. The total contained those of police officers.

One individual was discovered headless - while others appeared "severely damaged", he reported. Many also had what he described as knife injuries.

More than 120 people were killed in the Tuesday operation on a criminal gang - the most lethal operation the municipality has seen.

The photographer stated that he was first alerted concerning the action in the early hours by community members living in Alemão, who reached out telling him an armed confrontation was occurring.

The reporter traveled to the healthcare center, where the victims were arriving.

The eyewitness reported that security forces blocked media personnel from accessing the affected area, where the operation were occurring.

"Police officers created a barrier and said: 'Media representatives are not allowed to pass'."

But Itan, who spent his childhood in the community, stated he succeeded to make his way into the cordoned-off area, where he stayed until dawn.

He reported that evening, local residents began to search the hillside which divides the community of Penha and the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for relatives who had been missing since the police raid.

Local people of the Penha neighbourhood arranged the recovered bodies in a square - the photographer's images reveal the reaction of the people there.

"The brutality of the situation shook me profoundly: the pain of loved ones, mothers fainting, women carrying children, weeping, outraged parents," the eyewitness remembered.

The photographer

The state leader of the region stated that the large-scale security action involving around 2,500 security personnel was designed to preventing a criminal group called Comando Vermelho from expanding its territory.

Originally, the Rio state government stated that sixty individuals along with four officers" had been killed in the operation.

Officials subsequently stated that initial estimates shows that 117 alleged criminals were fatally injured.

Rio's public defender's office, which provides legal assistance to the poor, has estimated the final tally of fatalities to be 132.

According to researchers, the gang stands as the sole illegal faction that recently has succeeded to expand its territory across the region.

It is generally regarded one of the two largest gangs nationally, in company with a rival criminal group, featuring a timeline extending half a century.

According to Brazilian journalist a specialist, who has been covering criminal activity in the city over many years, the gang "functions as a network" with local criminal leaders joining the organization and acting as "business partners".

The organization engages primarily in drug trafficking, while also dealing in firearms, gold, fuel, beverages cigarettes.

Per law enforcement statements, criminal affiliates are well armed and officials reported that while the action was underway, they faced assaults from explosive-laden drones.

The official of the state, Cláudio Castro, labeled Red Command members as criminal extremists and called the four police officers who died during the operation as brave public servants.

However, the count of fatalities during the raid has come in for criticism with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressing they felt "appalled".

In a media appearance on Wednesday, the official defended the police force.

"There was no objective to result in deaths. We wanted to arrest them all alive," he declared.

He further explained that the situation had escalated because the suspects resisted aggressively: "It resulted of the resistance they carried out and the overwhelming response from the gang members."

The governor also said that the bodies presented by community members in the area were "altered".

Via a statement on online platforms, he said that certain victims had been taken of military-style attire he said they had been wearing "to redirect responsibility onto the police".

A police official of Rio's civil police force also said that tactical gear, vests, and firearms" had been removed from the victims and displayed evidence seemingly depicting a person stripping military attire {off a corpse