More than half a million people were killed in homicides between 2006 and 2016 in Brazil, according to the latest statistics on violence in Latin America's biggest country Tuesday.
In 2016 alone - the last year for which full statistics are available - there were a record 62,517 homicides, the study by the Ipea government research agency and the respected private Brazilian Forum on Public Security said.
That was up almost 26 percent from a decade earlier and marks Brazil as one of the most violent places on Earth, with a homicide rate of 30.3 for 100,000 people, 30 times over the European rate, the study said.
"Just in the last 10 years, 553,000 people lost their lives due to intentional violence in Brazil," the researchers said.
As has long been the case in Brazil's crime landscape, young, poor blacks are by far the most likely to suffer, with whites, who make up about half the population, accounting for only 28.5 percent of annual homicides.