‘The our bodies simply saved coming’

A photographer who witnessed the aftermath of a large Brazilian police operation in Rio de Janeiro has instructed the BBC of how residents got here again with mutilated our bodies of those that had died.

The our bodies “kept coming: 25, 30, 35, 40, 45…”, Bruno Itan instructed BBC Brasil. They included these of law enforcement officials.

One of the our bodies had been decapitated – others had been “totally disfigured”, he stated. Many additionally had what he says had been stab wounds.

More than 120 individuals had been killed throughout Tuesday’s raid on a prison gang – the deadliest such raid within the metropolis.

Bruno Itan instructed BBC Brasil that he was first alerted to the raid early on Tuesday by residents of the Alemão neighbourhood, who despatched him messages telling him there was a shoot-out.

The photographer made his option to the Getúlio Vargas hospital, the place the our bodies had been arriving.

Itan says that the police stopped members of the press from coming into the Penha neighboorhood, the place the operation was beneath means.

“Police officers formed a line and said: ‘The press doesn’t get past here.'”

But Itan, who grew up within the space, says he was in a position to make his means into the cordoned-off space, the place he remained till the subsequent morning.

He says that Tuesday evening, native residents started to go looking the hillside which divides Penha from the close by Alemão neighbourhood for relations who had been lacking because the police raid.

Residents of the Penha neighbourhood proceeded to put the recovered our bodies in a sq. – and Itan’s images present the response of the individuals there.

“The brutality of it all impacted me a lot: the sorrow of the families, mothers fainting, pregnant wives, crying, outraged parents,” the photographer recalled.

The governor of Rio state stated that the large police operation involving round 2,500 safety personnel was aimed toward stopping a prison group often known as Comando Vermelho (Red Command) from increasing its territory.

Initially, the Rio state authorities maintained that “60 suspects and four police officers” had been killed within the operation.

They have since stated that their “preliminary” depend reveals that 117 “suspects” have been killed.

Rio’s public defender’s workplace, which offers authorized help to the poor, has put the overall variety of individuals killed at 132.

According to researchers, Red Command is the one prison group which in recent times has managed to make territorial features within the state of Rio de Janeiro.

It is extensively thought-about one of many two largest gangs within the nation, alongside First Capital Command (PCC), and has a historical past courting again greater than 50 years.

According to Brazilian journalist Rafael Soares, who has been overlaying crime in Rio for years, Red Command “operates like a franchise” with native prison leaders forming a part of the gang and turning into “business partners”.

The gang engages primarily in drug trafficking, but additionally smuggles weapons, gold, gasoline, alcohol and tobacco.

According to the authorities, gang members are nicely armed and police stated that in the course of the raid, they got here beneath assault from explosive-laden drones.

The governor of Rio state, Cláudio Castro, described Red Command members as “narcoterrorists” and known as the 4 law enforcement officials killed within the raid “heroes”.

But the variety of individuals killed within the operation has are available for criticism with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights saying it was “horrified”.

At a information convention on Wednesday, Governor Castro defended the police drive.

“It wasn’t our intention to kill anyone. We wanted to arrest them all alive,” he stated.

He added that the state of affairs had escalated as a result of the suspects had retaliated: “It was a consequence of the retaliation they carried out and the disproportionate use of force by those criminals.”

The governor additionally stated that the our bodies displayed by locals in Penha had been “manipulated”.

In a publish on X, he stated that a few of them had been stripped of the camouflage clothes he stated they’d been carrying “in order to shift blame onto the police”.

Felipe Curi of Rio’s civil police drive additionally stated that “camouflage clothing, vests, and weapons” had been faraway from the our bodies and confirmed footage showing to indicate a person slicing camouflage clothes off a corpse.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has summoned Governor Castro to a listening to on Monday to elucidate the police actions “in detail”.

With further reporting by BBC Brasil’s Carol Castro in Rio de Janeiro.