For Ricardo Moraes, a veteran photographer who for 11 years has documented for Reuters life in Rio de Janeiro's often dangerous cinderblock slums known as "favelas", work began at about 6 a.m. on Thursday, when he heard a radio report of a hostage situation in Sao Carlos, a sprawling tangle of hillside homes near the city center.
The images he would capture - a young woman, kneeling over her husband's body, overcome with grief and surrounded by heavily armed police - ultimately would appear on the front pages of Brazil's two largest newspapers. They resonated in a city fed up with violence, where residents say shootouts among aggressive criminal gangs and a notoriously deadly police force are common.
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Juliana's pain is not unique in Brazil, which last year recorded more homicides than any other country in the world. Rio de Janeiro alone registered 3,025 homicides. Another 1,814 people were killed by police.
"My husband, he was what he was. But he was a good man," said Juliana. "He was my prince."
PHOTO EDITING MARIKA KOCHIASHVILI; WRITING GRAM SLATTERY; EDITING ROSALBA OBRIEN & DANIEL WALLIS; LAYOUT JULIA DALRYMPLE