🔗 Share this article The casualties continued piling up - photographer recounts fatal Rio police raid The photographer Multiple casualties were arranged in an open area in northern Rio following the most lethal operation the municipality has experienced A reporter who documented the consequences of an extensive Brazilian police operation in the metropolitan area has described how local people returned with mutilated bodies of people who lost their lives. The victims "kept coming: the count kept increasing", the photographer reported. The total contained security forces. One of the bodies was found without a head - while others appeared "totally disfigured", he explained. Numerous victims displayed what he described as blade trauma. In excess of 120 victims were killed in the Tuesday operation against a criminal group - the bloodiest action the municipality has seen. Over 100 individuals were detained in connection with the police action The eyewitness explained that he was first alerted concerning the action in the early hours by residents of the Alemão neighbourhood, who sent him messages alerting him an armed confrontation was occurring. The eyewitness traveled to the Getúlio Vargas hospital, where the casualties were coming in. Itan explained that the police blocked media personnel from accessing the affected area, where the operation were occurring. "Law enforcement personnel formed a line and announced: 'Journalists doesn't get past here'." But Itan, who spent his childhood in the community, explained he succeeded to make his way past the security perimeter, where he remained until the next morning. He described that Tuesday night, community members began to search the hillside which divides Penha from the adjacent Alemão area for family members who were unaccounted for after the operation. Residents of the Penha neighbourhood arranged the discovered victims in a square - the photographer's images display the reaction of those present. "The harsh reality of it all shook me a lot: the grief of relatives, mothers fainting, women carrying children, crying, outraged parents," the photographer recalled. The photographer There was shock in the neighborhood as community members recovered more and more bodies from the adjacent terrain The official of the state declared that the extensive law enforcement effort with approximately 2,500 security personnel was aimed at preventing a criminal group called the criminal faction from expanding its territory. At first, local officials maintained that sixty alleged criminals along with four officers" were fatally injured in the raid. Officials subsequently stated that their "preliminary" count suggests that 117 individuals have been killed. Rio's public defender's office, that offers legal help to the poor, has estimated the overall count of fatalities as 132. Per investigative findings, the gang stands as the sole illegal faction that in the past few years has succeeded to increase its control across the region. It is widely considered as a major illegal faction in Brazil, together with a rival criminal group, with a background extending half a century. Per correspondent a specialist, with extensive experience documenting criminal activity in the city for years, the criminal organization "operates like a franchise" with local criminal leaders joining the organization and acting as "commercial associates". The gang focuses mainly on drug trafficking, additionally trafficking firearms, gold, petroleum products, alcohol smoking products. Based on official reports, criminal affiliates are well armed and police said that while the action was underway, they encountered resistance via weaponized unmanned aircraft. The governor of the state, the political leader, labeled gang affiliates as "narcoterrorists" and described the security forces fatally injured in the action as courageous individuals. But the number of casualties during the raid has received condemnation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights saying it was "appalled". During a press briefing on Wednesday, the state leader supported law enforcement. "It wasn't our intention to result in deaths. We wanted to arrest them all alive," he said. He further explained that the events had escalated because the suspects fought back: "It was a consequence of the resistance they implemented and the excessive violence by those criminals." The governor further reported that the casualties displayed by locals in the neighborhood had been "tampered with". Via a statement on online platforms, he asserted that certain victims had been removed of military-style attire he said they had been wearing "to redirect responsibility onto the police". A law enforcement representative of Rio's civil police force additionally stated that military attire, body armor, and firearms" were stripped from the casualties and presented video seemingly depicting a man stripping military attire {off a corpse