Authorities in the state of Rio de Janeiro announced Sunday the opening of an investigation after the death of an 8-year-old girl, killed by a bullet lost during a police operation in a favela of the metropolis.
The military police "will open a procedure to investigate the police intervention in the Complejo de Alemao", a favela in the north of the city, which took place on the night of Friday to Saturday, said on Twitter the local governorate, expressing his condolences for the death of the young Agatha Felix.
The police said they intervened to deal with "simultaneous attacks by criminal gangs in different places" in the favela, one of the poor neighborhoods where nearly a quarter of Rio's population lives and where organized crime reigns. .
But according to various testimonies of relatives of the girl, quoted in the local press there were no clashes in the favela in question at that time. The girl was allegedly shot dead in the back when police fired on two people on a motorcycle.
The girl was to be buried on Sunday.
Agathe is the fifth minor who died in police operations this year, according to figures from the Fogo Cruzado association, which lists shootings in Rio.Deaths due to violence in Brazil rose by 10.4% in 2018, to 57,341 people, compared to 2017, according to the Brazilian Forum for Public Security (FBSP), which is based on official data.