The casualties continued piling up - photographer recounts lethal Rio security action

The photographer

A photographer who documented the results of a large-scale law enforcement action in the metropolitan area has reported how local people came back with badly injured victims of those who had died.

The victims "kept piling up: the count kept increasing", the photographer described. The total contained those of police officers.

One of the bodies had been decapitated - additional victims were "totally disfigured", he said. Many also had what he described as knife injuries.

More than 120 people were fatally injured during Tuesday's raid against a criminal group - the bloodiest action Rio has experienced.

The eyewitness explained that residents first notified him concerning the action in the early hours by local people of the Alemão neighbourhood, who sent him messages alerting him gunfire had erupted.

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

Itan explained that the police prevented journalists from going into the affected area, where the security measures were occurring.

"Police officers created a barrier and said: 'Journalists cannot proceed beyond this point'."

But Itan, who was raised in the area, explained he succeeded to make his way into the restricted zone, where he remained through the night.

He reported during the night, local residents commenced searching the hillside that separates the community of Penha and the neighboring Alemão community for relatives whose whereabouts were unknown since the police raid.

Community members of the Penha neighbourhood organized the located casualties in a square - and Itan's photos display the reaction of the people there.

"The brutality of the situation impacted me a lot: the pain of loved ones, mothers fainting, pregnant wives, weeping, furious relatives," the photographer recalled.

The photographer

The official of the state stated that the large-scale security action deploying about 2,500 officers was aimed at halting a gang called Comando Vermelho from increasing their control.

At first, local officials stated that sixty alleged criminals along with four officers" had been killed in the raid.

Authorities later reported that initial estimates indicates that 117 alleged criminals lost their lives.

Rio's public defender's office, that gives legal support to disadvantaged individuals, has calculated the final tally of fatalities as 132.

According to researchers, the gang stands as the sole illegal faction that recently has succeeded to increase its control in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

It is generally regarded one of the two largest gangs in the country, together with another major gang, with a background dating back more than 50 years.

Per reporter Rafael Soares, who has been covering crime in Rio for years, Red Command "operates like a franchise" with area gang leaders forming part of the gang and becoming "business partners".

The gang focuses mainly on narcotics distribution, while also dealing in guns, valuable minerals, fuel, alcohol and tobacco.

Per law enforcement statements, organization members are well armed and authorities stated that while the action was underway, they faced assaults via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The state leader of Rio state, the government representative, labeled gang affiliates as criminal extremists and described the law enforcement personnel fatally injured in the action as "heroes".

Nevertheless, the total of fatalities in the operation has come in for criticism from UN human rights officials expressing they felt "horrified".

During a press briefing the next day, the official defended the police force.

"There was no objective to result in deaths. We aimed to detain everyone safely," he said.

He continued that the circumstances worsened because the suspects resisted aggressively: "It resulted of the retaliation they carried out and the overwhelming response from the gang members."

The governor further reported that the victims displayed by locals in the area were "altered".

Via a statement on online platforms, he claimed that some of them had been stripped of the camouflage clothing that he stated they possessed "in order to shift blame to security forces".

Felipe Curi from the police department further reported that "camouflage clothing, body armor, and arms" were stripped from the casualties and presented video appearing to show a person stripping military attire {off a corpse