RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil will send more officers back into a Rio de Janeiro slum amid public outcry over a 10-year-old boy killed during a police shootout, officials said Sunday.
Police say Eduardo de Jesus Ferreira died during a shootout between officers and drug traffickers, but his family insists he was killed by police.
Tensions have been high since the killing and police fired tear gas Friday to break up a protest over the boy's death.
The Alemao slum experiences frequent gang violence and was occupied by authorities in 2010 in an operation that was unprecedented at the time.
"We are going to go back in there stronger. We are going to re-occupy (Alemao)," Rio state governor Luiz Fernando Pezao told Globo News.
Demonstrators in Rio took to Copacabana beach earlier to protest the death of the boy who was killed in the Alemao favela.
Members of the Brazilian non-profit group Rio de Paz marched along the beach and symbolically buried a white coffin in the sand in a show of solidarity for the 10-year-old victim who died Thursday.
Security concerns in the Brazilian city are again under the spotlight ahead of next year's Olympics.
"We are just living in constant fear here. There is crossfire every day," resident Zaquel Nunes told AFP.
About 20 activists carried placards with the names of 18 children who have been killed during clashes between police and drug gangs in the favelas between 2007 and 2015.
Antonio Carlos Costa, the founder of the activist group, told AFP the purpose of the demonstration was to "wake up" Rio's population to the major cause of these violent deaths: the gap between rich and poor.
"How will the city of Rio de Janeiro respond? It will host the 2016 Olympics, yet here is the death of a poor child, the victim of stray bullets. How can we expect peace in such an unequal city?" Costa said.
In a statement, President Dilma Rousseff expressed solidarity with parents of the slain boy and called for those responsible to be punished.
Brazil's government tried to crack down on crime in Rio ahead of the 2014 World Cup and is attempting the same head of next year's Olympics.
In all, 38 police units have been sent into 174 impoverished, crime-wracked neighborhoods around Rio as part of a public safety program.
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