Residents protest death of 10-year-old killed in slum

RIO DE JANEIRO – Residents of a Rio slum blocked traffic Thursday on an expressway in the city’s north to protest another death by stray bullet.

The demonstration on the Linha Amarela expressway followed the burial of 10-year-old Vanessa do Santos earlier in the day. She was killed two days earlier at her home after being hit in the head by a bullet fired during a police operation in the Lins slum complex.

On Wednesday, a 14-year-old was critically injured by a stray bullet while she was in school in a Rio suburb.

Violence has been on the rise in the city’s hundreds of slums. Rio’s civil police say that this year bullets have hit 632 bystanders, killing at least 67.