When J. took his first breath, fresh into the world, he was already condemned to be an outcast for the rest of his short life.

His birth certificate bore no reference to his father: he had none. He was–like thousands of children born in the Complexo da Maré, Rio de Janeiro–excluded from society.

His mother was HIV-positive and he lived in a 2m by 2m cubicle house without a bathroom. The complex of favelas where he lived is one of the most dangerous parts of town, where two neighbouring rival factions of drug traffickers make sure all Maré residents live in a state of constant civil war.

When J. was ten years old his mother died. He was abandoned by his brothers who moved to different slums and didn’t take him along, leaving him in the cubicle house all alone. A child, he did not know how to take care of himself nor could he work to support himself. The community, tightly woven together due to the daily violence of their slum, tried to help him by building an adjacent bathroom to his tiny place in the world. But soon he preferred to live in the streets, begging for money and eating when he could.

J. was shot dead on June 25th 2013 during a conflict between the Special Forces Battalion (BOPE) and armed favela criminals. He was 16.

The shooting started on the evening of June 24th. People from the Complexo da Maré, a group of favelas, were protesting against violence when, according to the police, criminals took advantage of the crowd to mug the cars in the street. The police chased them into the slum where the conflict broke out and continued through the night. By morning, nine people were dead. Residents claim that the carnage was an act of vendetta. According to them, the chase started because of the muggings, but the conflict persisted throughout the night because a BOPE commander was shot dead and the special battalion was looking for revenge.

Brazilians have been protesting and striking for better security, health, public services and the end of corruption since June. The photos circulating around the world have shown the lack of training of Brazilian military police who use brutal force to suppress the protesters. Mostly from the middle and higher class, the protesters have now experienced police brutality that residents of the favela have to deal with every day. The people who took to the streets were not used to confrontation with the police, and for the first time in their lives they were bombed, tear gassed and shot at. But the bullets in the favelas are not made of rubber. The bullets in the favela are fatal.

The Deeper Problems

Social exclusion is the root of many problems in Brazil. In the big cities thousands of civilians are stuck in their social class with absolutely no chance of mobility. It starts very early on, just like it happened with J. and is aggravated throughout the child’s life.

From 2007 to 2012 5,107 people were murdered by firearms in the state of Rio de Janeiro. This violence hinders lower-class Brazilian children’s abilities to learn, play, feel and lead a normal life.

“When children come here they don’t know anything, we have to start from zero,” says Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, founder and manager of Project Uêre, a non-profit school that educates children whose learning abilities have been impaired by their living conditions located in Complexo da Maré.

Yvonne knew J. and tried to help him from the very beginning. He isn’t the first of her students to die in conflicts.

“I am always depressed when I nose around and find photos of me with children who have died,” she revealed on her Facebook page.

“J. was one of my children, number 121. I gave him love, a lot of it. Only that makes me feel better. Today he is beneath de earth, another victim of violence and the lack of organization of this country.”

J. was one of the children Yvonne battled to teach. But unlike most teachers she had to face the permanent damage violence can make on a child.

“They can’t read, they can’t write–they can’t even talk. They arrive here extremely traumatized by violence,” she says. “The violence in a child’s head blocks several parts of the brain that makes the learning not happen.”

They are so terrified that they develop anxiety, depression, panic attacks and many other severe mental illnesses at very young ages.

The difference between the hills and the pavement is that the abuse of power in higher grounds goes mostly unreported. And the impact of these unreported crimes on children are covered even less. News of abuse of power in the slums are largely excluded from the news agenda.

When J. got shot the mainstream press had its attention turned to the vandalized shops and banks in the high class neighbourhood of Leblon after a violent protest. The nine people who died in the favela were only mentioned in passing.

“Rio was moved by the brawls in Leblon on the 17th and 18th of July. The riot resulted in vandalized public phones, sign posts and 25 shops,” wrote journalist Mário Magalhães in a blog post entitled ‘The Heyday of Cowardice.’

“Rio wasn’t moved by the death of at least ten people in Maré on the 24th and the early morning of the 25th of June.”

The Ghosts of Maré 

The history between the Complexo da Maré and the Special Batallion (BOPE) of Rio de Janeiro is bloody and akin the atmosphere of a civil war. BOPE Major Ivan Blaz says this history is one of the reasons why the violence persists. While there is a plan to pacify the gigantic complex of slums, Major Blaz’s mission is to re-educate the police to respect the residents and cease the abuse of power.

“Combat brutalizes, it hardens the spirit. It turns the heart cold. And that doesn’t happen just to the police, the residents also get their hopes, objectives taken away. So you end up becoming a soldier for the pleasure of combat, but that’s not the objective. We need combat, but with the goal of protecting the population, the objective of pacification.”

Major Blaz also says that there are some favelas where this pleasure of combat, of violence also grows inside the traficantes (drug traffickers). Sometimes, they shoot for the thrill of shooting – and kill residents of their own community.

“It might not even be the pleasure of it,” he explains. “It’s the fear, the despair. Between 1998 and 2005 the number of BOPE soldiers that died here was very high.”

This precedent of deaths casts a shadow over the whole community.

“[A policeman] comes and shoots a boy. He falls on the floor. The guy says to me, go and get a bucket so we can clean this up. I said – me? No way,” says Yvonne.

She almost got in trouble for rejecting the policeman’s request but dodged trouble because of her reputation in the community.

“[The other day] Outside, a battalion man was shoving a man’s head in a bucket of water. In front of everyone. That is torture,” she stresses the word and tells her stories with angry, tired eyes.

She could tell a million of them.

“Once, they called me at eight in the morning. A woman’s house was burned to the ground. They said she is the wife of a criminal. I asked – was he in the house? It was a little room, a woman with four kids. Is the criminal inside the house? They say no. So what did they burn the woman’s house for? It has to stop.”

Yvonne is the only person who accepted being interviewed and named for this article. The danger appears to be so imminent that people who live with it daily are terrified of speaking about it.

It is with the arrival of the World Cup and the Olympics that the government are now finding necessary to occupy the slums after decades of neglect. Though it seems that pacification calms down the drug trafficking violence, there are no concrete plans as to what will happen to the people in the slums after the authorities settle in. The favelas that are being pacified are located near or around tourist spots that will be used for the international events. Other violent locations have been left to their own devices and the people don’t believe they will ever be taken care of.

And with the cleansing of drug traffickers in the favelas of interest, the criminals are migrating to other violent slums and creating other factions.

Letters From the Favela