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The eyewitness

A reporter who documented the results of a massive security raid in the metropolitan area has reported how community members returned with disfigured remains of people who lost their lives.

The casualties "kept piling up: the count kept increasing", the eyewitness reported. The total contained security forces.

One of the bodies was discovered headless - additional victims were "completely mutilated", he said. Many also had evidence of blade trauma.

In excess of 120 victims were fatally injured during the security action against a criminal group - the bloodiest action Rio has experienced.

The eyewitness reported that residents first notified him about the operation Tuesday morning by community members living in Alemão, who sent him messages alerting him gunfire had erupted.

The reporter went to the Getúlio Vargas hospital, where the bodies were being brought.

The photographer stated that security forces prevented journalists from accessing the Penha neighborhood, where the operation were occurring.

"Police officers formed a line and announced: 'Media representatives cannot proceed beyond this point'."

However, the photographer, who grew up in that neighborhood, reported he succeeded to gain access into the restricted zone, where he continued through the night.

He reported during the night, local residents commenced searching the hillside that borders the Penha neighborhood from the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for family members whose whereabouts were unknown after the operation.

Local people living in Penha organized the discovered victims in a public space - the photographer's images display the emotions of the gathered crowd.

"The violence of the situation affected me a lot: the pain of relatives, mothers fainting, expectant spouses, crying, furious relatives," the reporter recounted.

The photographer

The official of the region announced that the large-scale security action deploying about 2,500 law enforcement members was designed to halting a criminal group called Red Command from expanding its territory.

Initially, the Rio state government stated that sixty individuals and four police officers" lost their lives during the action.

Authorities later reported that initial estimates indicates that 117 alleged criminals have been killed.

Rio's public defender's office, which provides legal assistance to low-income residents, has estimated the total number of casualties at 132.

Based on expert analysis, the criminal organization is the only criminal group that recently has been able to increase its control in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Experts commonly view as a major illegal faction in the country, alongside another major gang, and has a history dating back more than 50 years.

Based on correspondent Rafael Soares, who has long reported on illegal operations in Rio for years, Red Command "operates like a franchise" with area gang leaders joining the organization and acting as "commercial associates".

The criminal group focuses mainly on drug trafficking, additionally trafficking firearms, gold, fuel, liquor smoking products.

According to the authorities, gang members have substantial firearms and police said that while the action was underway, they encountered resistance via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The official of the region, the government representative, labeled organization participants as drug terrorists and referred to the four police officers fatally injured in the action as "heroes".

But the number of people killed in the security action has received condemnation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights saying it was "horrified".

In a media appearance the next day, Governor Castro justified security actions.

"We did not plan to result in deaths. We wanted to arrest them all alive," he stated.

He continued that the situation worsened due to the alleged criminals had retaliated: "It occurred of the retaliation they carried out and the excessive violence by those criminals."

The governor further reported that the bodies shown by residents in the area had been "manipulated".

In a post on online platforms, he claimed that particular individuals had been taken of tactical gear he said they had been wearing "to transfer accusation to security forces".

Felipe Curi from the police department also said that tactical gear, protective equipment, and arms" were stripped from the casualties and displayed evidence appearing to show a man cutting camouflage clothing {off a corpse