‘Avenue of Death’: the Rio motorway where stray bullets, botched raids and resilience collide

When Renato Oliveira boarded a bus down Brazil Avenue one morning last October it should have been just another normal commute. View image in fullscreen Brazil Avenue, a Rio motorway which was designed as a monument to development but has become a symbol of the government’s failure to control crime. According to the Instituto Fogo Cruzado, a group that tracks gun violence, Brazil Avenue suffered 637 shootouts from 2017 to 2024 – one every five days. All walks of life are exposed to the deadly violence afflicting Brazil Avenue thanks to decades of state neglect. Sitting at home surrounded by pictures of her dead husband, Lima urged authorities to change their strategy of combating drug gangs with warzone-style raids on the favelas.