Two teenage boys among 10 killed in police raid on Brazil shanty towns

Ten people were killed in shootouts yesterday when police raided shanty towns in Rio de Janeiro. Two of the dead were teenage boys.

A woman was taken to a hospital after being hit by a stray bullet.

Daily clashes between police and heavily armed drugs gangs that control hundreds of mostly lawless shanty towns make Rio one of the world's most dangerous major cities.Police say that those who died are suspected drug traffickers, reports news agency Reuters. But human rights groups have accused the police of brutality and summary executions.

Four of Rio de Janeiro's sprawling shanty towns were targeted in the raids involving 300 officers, helicopters and armoured cars as police searched for drugs, arms and stolen cars.

Rio's large shanty towns, or favelas, are mostly a no-go area for police, who only enter on heavily-armed raids directed against drug gangs or illegal militias. But the latest killings come at a time when a new approach to policing is being tried in two poor neighbourhoods, one of which was visited by Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday. Instead of withdrawing after a violent confrontation, police say they are maintaining a 24-hour presence in the Santa Marta favela to take back the area from drug traffickers.

Security operations often lead to the deaths of innocent people. In the past week a police operation against drug traffickers in one Rio favela resulted in at least nine deaths. Police in Rio killed more than 1,300 people in 2007 alone, according to figures from human rights groups.

"We don't go into these places to kill people or to cause harm to people," Jose Mariano Beltrame, Rio's State Secretary for Security told the BBC. "We go into these places after our intelligence confirms information about stores of ammunition, drugs and weapons."

Brazil is South America's economic giant. But it has a history of boom and bust and its development has been hampered by high inflation and foreign debt. Poverty and destitution are widespread with 54 million people living below the poverty line, particularly in the huge favelas.

SOS Children in Brazil cares for more than 1,700 children in 180 family homes. In many Villages SOS Children built and ran SOS Primary Schools for the local community. As well as the 15 SOS Children’s Villages, SOS Children has 26 SOS Social Centres, which provide day care for vulnerable children.

Written by Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children