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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Eleonore Hughes

United by grief, mothers in Brazil demand reparations after police killed their sons

Brazil Mothers Violence - (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

When a Brazilian police officer killed Ana Paula Oliveira’s 19-year-old son in a Rio de Janeiro favela in 2014, the mother of two didn’t think she would survive the grief.

Founding a group with other grieving mothers — attending judicial hearings, protests and commemorative events together and providing essential psychological support to one another — saved her life, Oliveira says.

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