WORLD : Brazil Police Kill Street Children

LONDON —  Death squads are killing hundreds of street children in Brazil’s cities, possibly at the rate of one a day, Amnesty International said today.

Many more children, forced onto the streets to support their families, are being beaten and tortured by police, the London-based human rights group said.

“Poor children in Brazil are treated with contempt by the authorities, risking their lives simply by being on the streets,” Amnesty said in a report.

Amnesty said death squads, some of them operated secretly by police, were killing children in order to “clean up the streets” or remove witnesses.

It quoted the Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Analysis as saying 457 young people, most with no criminal record, were killed by death squads last year in three cities and the killings were continuing.