Four Are Killed and 12 Wounded by Stray Bullets in Rio in Just Nine Days

01/27/2015 - 08h48

A 21-year-old woman died on Sunday night (25) in Rio's Rocinha favela, in São Conrado, in the south of the city, a victim of a stray bullet.

There had been fighting that night between criminals and police from the city's pacification units (UPPs).

This takes the number of victims of stray bullets in Greater Rio to 16 in just nine days. Four of these cases were fatal.

According to the police, the woman shot in Rocinha, Adriene Solan do Nascimento, was taken to hospital, but she died from her wounds.

In a statement, the military police said that they were carrying out a routine patrol when they were ambushed by armed criminals.

Also on Sunday night (25), another three people were hit by stray bullets in a gunfight between rival gangs in Mesquita, Baixada Fluminense.

Rio's Minister for Public Safety, José Mariano Beltrame, said that the incidents were caused by a "criminal nation" that has been created in Rio, and which is "irresponsible towards human life and idolizes guns."

"Of course the police has its own problems, but it's very important that society is alert, because most of these stray bullets were fired by drug traffickers who weren't fighting the police at the time, with the exception of the Rocinha case," he said.

Witnesses told police that rival gangs were fighting at Morro do Chapadão, in Costa Barros, in the north of Rio, in the early hours of Monday morning (26), when a twelve-year-old girl was hit.

On Saturday (24), a fourteen-year-old boy was hit in the arm as he played in the play area of a gated community in Niterói, in Greater Rio.

Relatives said that their first thought was that the boy had been struck by lightning. They only discovered he had been shot when he underwent an X-ray.

"It was a shock, but at the same time we're relieved, because the bullet only hit his arm," said his mother, Gracielle Carvalho Milagres, 33.

Translated by TOM GATEHOUSE

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