RIO DE JANEIRO — Dozens of children and youngsters from Rio de Janeiro’s Mare neighborhood gathered for the launch of a e book by which they present, with their very own phrases and photos, how violence of their poor, bayside neighborhood weighs on their younger lives.

The e book, titled “I Was Supposed to be at School,” options drawings and testimonies collected from children aged between 5 and 17.

All too typically, when Rio state’s army police conduct operations and face off with native drug traffickers, class is canceled and so they take shelter behind washing machines, underneath their beds or removed from home windows {that a} stray bullet would possibly shatter. Mare is one in all Rio’s most populous favelas, with about 130,000 residents.

“Some policemen invade our houses. They turn things upside down, they attack, they even steal our food,” in response to one baby’s account within the e book, which launched Monday.

“Sometimes police fire at children, too,” one other account says, happening to reference 14-year-old Marcus Vinícius da Silva, whose dying in 2018 sparked outrage and protests. Residents say police shot him within the again as he left residence for sophistication, however the case stays unsolved and sealed by Rio police.

The e book’s phrases got here immediately from the children and picked up in partnership with nonprofit Redes da Mare, in response to creator Isabel Malzoni. The e book does not checklist the names of the youngsters concerned.

“We and the nonprofit in Mare agreed with the families that the anonymity of the children was critical for the project so the children and their parents felt safe about it. It was a condition for the project to exist,” she said later.

The project’s trigger was a surge of police raids in 2019, the year Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil’s president and ally Wilson Witzel became Rio’s governor, after both campaigned with pledges to give police carte-blanche to use lethal force against criminals. During that year, Mare saw 41 police operations resulting in 42 deaths and 35 days without school for local children, according to Redes da Mare and Rio de Janeiro state public defender’s office.

Those figures edged down in 2023, the first year in office for current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gov. Cláudio Castro: 27 police operations, 39 deaths and 15 days without school.

Rio state police didn’t respond to a request from The Associated Press about the book. The force has repeatedly said in the past that any operations in Mare and other favelas are aimed at stopping criminal activity. But the list of deaths from stray bullets continues to grow.

The book also contains some hope for better days.

“I also think of EVERYTHING that could be different,” one child is quoted as saying, next to a drawing of a calm day at Mare, with an apple tree, clouds and a rainbow. “Tomorrow, if it is a day of peace, I am going to school.”

Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.

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