At a sun-scorched Murundu cemetery in west Rio de Janerio, the families of three young girls gathered to say their final farewells 24 hours after the worst school massacre in Brazilian history.
Crying relatives packed into three cramped chapels and huddled around open caskets filled with white petals and the corpses of their loved ones.
Laryssa da Silva Martins (13) Gessica Pereira (15) and Mariana Rocha de Souza (12) were among 12 students shot on Thursday when Wellington Menezes de Oliveira (23) burst into their school in Realengo, western Rio, and opened fire with two handguns before killing himself after being shot by police. The three girls were the first to be buried.
Laryssa lay in chapel one in a shiny white coffin. “She was so sweet and so calm. She was daddy’s favourite. She wanted to be in the navy,” said her aunt, Sandra Tavares (52) as the coffin was closed.
Next door, in chapel four, lay Gessica. Next to her coffin a blue metal sign was screwed into the wall. “Death separates us from our loved ones but God has a plan,” it read. “Be strong and have faith.”
Gessica’s friend, Ingrid Ribeiro (19) wiped tears from her eyes with a green flannel. “The family is devastated. She was just a child.” Around her, hundreds of elderly mourners sat trembling, weeping and wailing.
Friends of the third child, Mariana, reacted with anger and tears. “The government should be ashamed — where is the security in our schools? Where is it safe anymore? The moon?” questioned a 44-year-old bricklayer, Gilmar Moreira, father of the victim’s best friend.
Laryssa was the first to be buried, just after 11.30am. As her coffin was slotted into a concrete draw, mourners erupted into a round of applause that echoed across the dusty cemetery. Gravediggers sealed grave number 347 with grey putty. Overhead a police helicopter tossed red and yellow petals into the wind.
Students said Oliveira had entered Tasso da Silveira school at about 8am on Thursday claiming to be giving a lecture.
After talking to a former teacher he made his way up a flight of stairs to classroom three where students, mostly girls, were lined up. He shot many at point-blank range in the head and chest.
‘Relax, fatty, I’m not going to kill you’
Mateus Moraes (13) told the O Dia newspaper that Oliveira had deliberately killed a number of girls but spared the boys. “He killed the girls with shots to the head,” Moraes said. “The boys, he just shot to injure, in the arms or the legs.
“I asked him not to kill me and he said: ‘Relax, fatty, I’m not going to kill you,'” added Moraes. “As he reloaded the gun I just prayed. God saved me.”
Grisly photographs taken inside classroom three were printed by one local newspaper and CCTV footage showing part of the rampage was also leaked, although editors decided most of the images were too disturbing to publish.
The photographs showed open textbooks and backpacks scattered on top of a jumble of blood-stained chairs and desks. Golden bullet cases littered the floor.
Jade Ramos Araújo (12) was sitting a science test when Oliveira burst into her classroom wearing a dark blue jacket and with an ammunition belt strapped to his waist.
“He was shouting at the children: ‘Face the wall because I’m going to kill you,'” she told the Brazilian news website IG. “The children shouted, begging: ‘Don’t kill me, young man.’
“It was like a waterfall of blood, with blood flowing like water. The were lots of dead people on the stairs, more girls than boys.”
Another 12-year-old student said the gunman had been well dressed. “He came into our room and said he was going to kill everyone. I thought I was going to die.” Asked if she would return to the school, the girl shook her head amd said: “I am leaving.”
Brazil’s justice minister, José Eduardo Cardozo, promised a government “crusade” against gun ownership. “We have to fight strongly against this culture of armament, against this culture that makes people … commit this kind of atrocity,” he said. – guardian.co.uk