Candelária massacre

The Candelária Church is a famous historic Roman Catholic church in central Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The church itself and the buildings around it in Pius X Square became known as a popular location for possibly hundreds of Rio de Janeiro's street children to form a makeshift home at night. The church's personnel provides food, shelter, education and religious advice to as many of these children as possible. Many of the homeless children are involved with the illegal drug trade and prostitution, and because many of these children also live around the church during the day, police keep a constant watch on the church's surroundings. In the early 1990s, the area around the Candelária Church developed a high crime rate as street children increasingly began to commit criminal activities such as pickpocketing and robbery.

Site where the massacre occurred.

According to survivors, on the morning of July 22, 1993, the day before the massacre, a group of children threw stones at police cars. As the children from the Candelária Church area were usually only given warnings by policemen, the young perpetrators left without worrying too much about the threat. At midnight, several Chevrolet Chevette cars with covered license plates came to a halt in front of the Candelária Church, and the occupants began shooting at the group of roughly seventy street children sleeping in the vicinity of the church.

Six children and two adults were killed and numerous others were wounded outside the Candelária Church. Subsequently, during the investigations the shots were found to be fired by policemen, and fifty officers were accused of the massacre. One of them, Mauricio da Conceição, died during a shootout as he was about to be arrested in 1994. Two others, Marcos Emmanuel and Nelson Cunha, were handed sentences equivalent to life sentences.[1]

One of the children that survived that attack was supposedly shot several times before he could testify against policemen that were to go to trial, and ended up fleeing from Brazil in order to save his life.

The international community severely condemned the attack, and many in Brazil asked for the prosecution of those who shot the Candelária Church children.

The event was addressed by the Brazilian death metal band Lacerated and Carbonized in the song "The Candelária Massacre" from their 2013 album The Core of Disruption. Blaggers ITA did the same in their 1993 single "Oxygen" [2]

• List of massacres in Brazil

• Movie review and director interview
• Amnesty International report and information
• Brazilian trooper convicted of slaughtering street children, CNN.com, May 1, 1996
• Trial begins for Rio police accused of killing homeless kids, CNN.com, December 9, 1996
• Killing of 4 Beggars Shocks Rio And Recalls Earlier Massacre, New York Times, December 12, 1997

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