Bahia leads the ranking of violent deaths in Brazil for the 4th consecutive year

By Itana Alencar

Bahia was the state that recorded the most violent deaths in 2022, throughout Brazil, for the 4th consecutive year.

The data are part of the Violence Monitor, a national homicide index created by g1, based on official information from 26 states and the Federal District.

The survey was released this Wednesday (1).

In all, 5,124 violent deaths were recorded in the state of Bahia last year, taking into account femicides (when the victims are killed as women), malicious homicides (when the murder is intentional), armed robberies (when the victim is killed so that the robbery can be completed) and bodily injury followed by death.

The data point to an average of 427 murders per month. All 5,124 violent deaths in Bahia represent a share of 12.5% of all cases in Brazil: 40,804.

Compared with 2021, when 5,099 violent deaths were registered in Bahia, the increase was 0.5%.

When analyzing the number of inhabitants of the state in the same year, a total of 14,985,284 people, Bahia accounted for 34.4 violent deaths per group of 100,000 inhabitants.

It is also possible to observe that for every 2,923 people in Bahia, one was murdered.

On February 24th, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report that counted 8,006 civilians killed in one year of war in Ukraine: one death for every 5,469 people, considering that the country has 43.79 million inhabitants.

The month with the fewest femicides recorded was March 2022, when three women were murdered in the context of domestic violence in Bahia. One of these victims, Edilena de Jesus Dantas, was killed at 40 by her ex-partner in the city of Ilhéus.

The Civil Police did not release this man’s name because of the Abuse of Authority Law.

Besides shooting Edilena to death, he also tried to murder her then-current companion, a 29-year-old woman. He was arrested by the population and was almost lynched, and caught in the act.

August, October, and December had the highest number of femicides.

One of the crimes was committed by a Public Security agent: a military police officer. Greice Kelly Rocha Soares was killed with such brutality that besides eight shots, she was also stabbed.

The young woman, 25, had been working in the beauty salon where she worked for less than two months.

She was trying to restart her life after being stabbed by the same military policeman with whom she had had an abusive relationship. His name, who was arrested in the act, was never released, not even by the corporation.

Most victims of intentional homicides are young black adults. Direct involvement (by acting) or indirect involvement (by living in areas with drug activity) with drug trafficking is the primary motivation for these murders.

That is how Gabriel Afonso da Silva, 25, was killed in the town of Serra do Ramalho, in western Bahia, in August 2022 – the month fewer murders were registered in the state. The house where he had lived for three months was invaded by armed men who executed him.

At the time of the crime, the Civil Police informed that the place worked as a drug trafficking point since notes of sales of narcotics were found.

Some deaths, like that of teenager Jheovane Neiva Afonso, were not motivated in any way.

He was killed in the center of Santo Antônio de Jesus, Recôncavo Baiano, while eating a snack with his mother in December last year.

The crime that killed Jheovane was intentional: two men on a motorcycle stopped at Praça Pirajá and shot him. The perpetrators are still being investigated.

Several victims were killed while having fun.

The young Raí Jesus da Silva, 18, was killed by several shots at a party in the city of Itamaraju, in the extreme south of Bahia, in July 2022.

The reason: he bumped into the shooter’s girlfriend.

A month earlier, in September, a young man of 20 was shot dead in the district of Aratuba, in Vera Cruz. David Santos da Silva was forcibly removed from his home while holding his son – another victim of violence.

Aged one year and three months, the baby was shot but resisted his injuries.

In 2022, 84 people were murdered so that criminals could steal their belongings – the so-called latrocínio.

One of the crimes that shocked Bahia and had national repercussions was committed against teenager Cristal Rodrigues Pacheco, 15, in Salvador in August.

The victim was walking to school with her mother and 12-year-old sister when two women approached her and announced a robbery.

The victim was shot and died in front of the Praça da Aclamação.

The couple who committed the crime was arrested.

The mother of one of the accused denounced her daughter to the police.

In a statement, they claimed that the shot had been “accidentally” fired.

Another robbery victim was Marcelo Ribeiro Falcão, a Civil Police investigator.

In July, he was killed at 51 in Feira de Santana; his cell phone and a gun were stolen during the crime.

In Marcelo’s case, the violence generated even more violence: the suspects were killed in a confrontation with the police on the same day.

VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL

Besides Bahia, three other Brazilian states recorded over 3,000 deaths last year.

Pernambuco (3,420), also in the Northeast; São Paulo (3,316) and Rio de Janeiro (3,141), both in Southeast Brazil.

The states of Roraima (183), Acre (216), and Amapá (226), all in the North region, had lower numbers of deaths.

The survey, which compiles data month by month, is part of the Violence Monitor, a partnership between g1, the Center for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo (NEV-USP), and the Brazilian Public Safety Forum.

With information from g1