AMERICA/BRAZIL - Every day eight children become orphans because their parents (31% aged 18-24) are killed in violence

Rome (Fides Service) - In 2003, at least 2,895 children in Rio de Janeiro, eight every day were orphaned becuase of violence, of these 83% were children or adolescents. This was said by the Brazilian daily “O Globo” which examined death certificates of 49,647 people, buried last year in one of the city’s 16 cemeteries.
The newspaper discovered that, 3,412 of these people were murdered: 94% were men; 83% minors; 40.8% leave children.
The newspaper said that according to a survey by the Brazilian Institute for Social Health carried out among 5,442 children involved in drug trafficking in the city’s 232 slums one out of every 14 was a child of parents killed in the endless gang war for control of drug distribution. The rate rises to one every eight children in the case of minors under 10. (AP) (5/7/2004 Agenzia Fides; Righe:15; Parole:167)