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BRASILIA, Brazil: On Saturday (December 5) grieving families celebrated the funerals of two young children killed by bullets while playing outside their homes in the Baixada Fluminense region of Rio de Janeiro.
The 4 and 7-year-old girls, cousins, were hit on the head and abdomen, respectively, on Friday night.
On Saturday, cries and shouts of “justice” were heard at their funerals at the Nossa Senhora das Graças cemetery in Rio, reflecting the families’ claim that the children were killed by police bullets.
Alexsandro dos Santos, center, receives help from friends during the burial of his daughter Emily Victoria Silva dos Santos, 4, in a cemetery in Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on December 5, 2020 (Photo: AP / Silvia Izquierdo)
Alexsandro dos Santos, center right, carries the coffin containing the remains of his daughter Emily Victoria Silva dos Santos, 4, to a cemetery in Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on December 5, 2020. (Photo: AP / Silvia Izquierdo)
In an email sent to the Associated Press, the Military Police denied that there were any shots fired by the military police.
The statement read: “A police team from the 15th Police Battalion was on patrol when shots were heard and the team continued to move.” He said an investigation will be conducted.
Rebeca Beatriz Rodrigues dos Santos’s grandmother, 7, Lídia da Silva Moreira Santos, who is also 4-year-old Emily Victória Silva dos Santos’ aunt, said that when she got home from work around 8 p.m. she saw the police firing at the community where the families lived.
Relative Ana Lúcia Alves de Souza, 51, denied that there had been an exchange of gunfire with the police.
Relatives of Emily Victoria Silva dos Santos, 4, and Rebeca Beatriz Rodrigues dos Santos, 7, mourn during their burial in a cemetery in Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on December 5, 2020 (Photo: AP / Silvia). Left)
“What is your preparation so that the police cannot distinguish between an adult and a child? There was no exchange of gunfire. Emily was shot in the head, ”he said.
The NGO Fogo Cruzado, or Crossfire, said that with the shooting deaths of Emily and Rebeca, 22 children under the age of 12 have been hit by stray bullets in 2020, eight of whom have died.
Emily’s father said excitedly: “I am burying my daughter, who has not lived at all.
