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The photographer

A reporter who documented the results of a massive law enforcement action in Rio de Janeiro has reported how residents came back with disfigured remains of the deceased individuals.

The bodies "kept piling up: the count kept increasing", Bruno Itan stated. They included law enforcement personnel.

One of the bodies had been decapitated - additional victims were "severely damaged", he said. Numerous victims displayed evidence of blade trauma.

More than 120 people lost their lives in the Tuesday operation on a criminal gang - the most lethal operation Rio has experienced.

The eyewitness reported that he was first alerted about the operation early on Tuesday by residents of the Alemão neighbourhood, who reached out informing him gunfire had erupted.

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

The photographer stated that law enforcement prevented journalists from entering the affected area, where the operation were taking place.

"Police officers established a perimeter and declared: 'The press cannot proceed beyond this point'."

But Itan, who grew up in the community, reported he managed to enter into the restricted zone, where he continued through the night.

He described that evening, area inhabitants started looking the hillside that borders the Penha neighborhood from the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for family members who were unaccounted for since the police raid.

Residents from the Penha area arranged the discovered victims in an open area - and Itan's photos show the reaction of the people there.

"The brutality of it all affected me a lot: the pain of loved ones, women collapsing, women carrying children, sobbing, outraged parents," the eyewitness remembered.

Bruno Itan

The state leader of Rio state stated that the extensive law enforcement effort involving around 2,500 security personnel was intended to preventing an illegal organization referred to as Comando Vermelho from increasing their control.

Originally, state authorities maintained that sixty alleged criminals plus four law enforcement personnel" had been killed in the operation.

They have since said that early calculations shows that 117 individuals lost their lives.

The public legal service, that gives legal support to the poor, has calculated the total number of casualties to be 132.

Per investigative findings, the gang is the only criminal group that recently has been able to make territorial gains across the region.

It is generally regarded among the biggest criminal organizations in Brazil, in company with a rival criminal group, with a background extending half a century.

Per reporter an expert, who has been covering crime in Rio for years, Red Command "functions as a network" with local criminal leaders forming part of the gang and becoming "business partners".

The criminal group engages primarily in drug trafficking, but also smuggles firearms, gold, fuel, liquor and tobacco.

According to the authorities, criminal affiliates have substantial firearms and police said that while the action was underway, they faced assaults via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The official of the state, the government representative, characterized gang affiliates as criminal extremists and described the four police officers killed in the raid as courageous individuals.

However, the count of people killed in the operation has faced scrutiny from UN human rights officials stating they were "horrified".

In a media appearance the following day, the official justified security actions.

"There was no objective to result in deaths. We intended to take suspects into custody without harm," he stated.

He further explained that the circumstances worsened due to the alleged criminals resisted aggressively: "It was a consequence of the resistance they carried out and the disproportionate use of force by those criminals."

The state leader further reported that the bodies displayed by locals in Penha were "altered".

Through a message through digital channels, he said that particular individuals had been removed of tactical gear that he stated they possessed "in order to shift blame to security forces".

A police official representing security forces additionally stated that "camouflage clothing, body armor, and firearms" were stripped from the casualties and displayed evidence apparently demonstrating a man stripping military attire {off a corpse