Rio de Janeiro, Jan 26 (EFE).- A total of 12 people were hit by stray bullets over the past 10 days in Rio de Janeiro and four of them died in incidents the authorities attributed to gunplay by drug traffickers.
The latest three cases occurred on Sunday night and Monday morning, and in one of them a 21-year-old man died after being hit in the liver while in his home in Rocinha, Rio's largest "favela," or shantytown.
Adriene Solan do Nascimento, who was hit by a stray bullet during a police operation in Rocinha, was alive when he arrived at a local hospital but later died of his wound.
In addition, a 12-year-old girl and a 58-year-old woman were wounded by stray bullets in isolated incidents on Monday morning in different favelas in western Rio.
The two victims were taken to the same public hospital and medical authorities said that they were both in stable condition.
On Saturday, a 14-year-old boy was wounded by a stray bullet as he was playing outside at a housing development in Niteroi, one of the municipalities in Greater Rio.
The four cases on the weekend came after eight others registered since Jan. 16 in different parts of the city. Three of those people, including two minors, died.
"The majority of those cases of stray bullets are the responsibility of drug traffickers and they occur without there being any confrontation with the police," said Rio's public safety secretary, Jose Mariano Beltrame, in remarks to a television network.
In 2013, according to the latest official figures, 120 people were hit by stray bullets in Rio de Janeiro and nine of them died.
Rio, for years, has been one of Brazil's most violent cities, but crime statistics have been falling since the regional government in 2003 began establishing small so-called UPP police stations in the favelas that were previously controlled by drug gangs.
