The casualties continued piling up - reporter shares deadly Rio security action

The photographer

A photographer who witnessed the aftermath of a large-scale security raid in Rio de Janeiro has recounted how local people brought back badly injured victims of people who lost their lives.

The casualties "kept coming: the numbers kept rising", Bruno Itan described. The total contained law enforcement personnel.

One of the bodies was discovered headless - others were "totally disfigured", he explained. Many also had evidence of blade trauma.

Over 120 individuals were killed in the Tuesday operation against a criminal group - the deadliest such raid in the city.

The photographer explained that he initially learned to the raid in the early hours by residents living in Alemão, who sent him messages informing him gunfire had erupted.

The photographer went to the Getúlio Vargas hospital, where the casualties were coming in.

The photographer stated that the police blocked media personnel from accessing the operation zone, where the security measures was under way.

"Security forces created a barrier and said: 'Journalists doesn't get past here'."

However, the photographer, who spent his childhood in that neighborhood, stated he succeeded to make his way past the security perimeter, where he continued until dawn.

He described during the night, area inhabitants began to search the mountainous area that borders the community of Penha and the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for relatives who were unaccounted for since the police raid.

Local people from the Penha area arranged the recovered bodies in an open area - and Itan's photos show the emotions of those present.

"The brutality of the situation shook me profoundly: the pain of the families, mothers fainting, expectant spouses, sobbing, furious relatives," the photographer recalled.

Bruno Itan

The governor of the state announced that the large-scale security action deploying about 2,500 security personnel was intended to halting an illegal organization referred to as Comando Vermelho from increasing their control.

Originally, state authorities maintained that "60 suspects and four police officers" lost their lives during the action.

They have since said that their "preliminary" count indicates that 117 alleged criminals have been killed.

The public legal service, that offers legal help to low-income residents, has put the total number of fatalities as 132.

Based on expert analysis, the criminal organization is the only criminal group that in the past few years has been able to expand its territory across the region.

It is widely considered as a major illegal faction nationally, alongside another major gang, with a background extending half a century.

Per Brazilian journalist an expert, who has been covering crime in Rio extensively, Red Command "operates like a franchise" with local criminal leaders forming part of the gang and becoming "operational allies".

The gang engages primarily in narcotics distribution, but also smuggles weapons, valuable minerals, petroleum products, beverages and tobacco.

According to the authorities, gang members have substantial firearms and police said that throughout the operation, they encountered resistance from explosive-laden drones.

The official of the state, the political leader, labeled gang affiliates as criminal extremists and described the security forces killed in the raid as brave public servants.

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

During a press briefing on Wednesday, the state leader defended the police force.

"There was no objective to kill anyone. We intended to arrest them all alive," he said.

He added that the events had escalated due to the alleged criminals resisted aggressively: "It occurred of the resistance they executed and the overwhelming response by the illegal group."

The state leader additionally stated that the victims displayed by locals in Penha were "altered".

Through a message through digital channels, he asserted that some of them had been stripped of military-style attire he said they had been wearing "in order to shift blame to security forces".

A law enforcement representative from the police department also said that military attire, protective equipment, and firearms" had been removed from the casualties and showed footage seemingly depicting a person stripping military attire {off a corpse