Three children (original information was that there were five, but this has been corrected) died in a massacre that killed nine people on the morning of Monday, August 28, in the city of Mata de São João, in the Brazilian state of Bahia. , were burned alive as a result of a fire set by criminals after the murder of adults.
The information, while not officially confirmed, was provided by agents of the Bahian state police who were at the scene of the murder, in the Núcleo Colonial JK area, in the countryside of the city, which is 62 km from Salvador, the state capital.
Probably, the killers who set fire to the apartment building after shooting two men and two women, but spared the three children who were there, did not know that the minors had cognitive impairments that also limited their mobility, which, in addition to their young age, would prevent them to run.
That is why three children, two of them with advanced Down’s syndrome, were found burnt, but without signs of gunfire or any other violence, from which the agents at the scene concluded that they died only because they could not escape and save yourself from the flames and smoke engulfing the area.
According to neighbors on the same street, the killers arrived at the scene at dawn looking for a man named Preah, who was believed to be involved in drug trafficking, and riddled him with bullets, killing another man and two women who were in the house. but sparing the children.
Two other fatal victims of the crime, two women who lived in a neighboring house, according to neighbors, had nothing to do with the criminal world, they were killed because they were frightened when they were awakened by the sound of explosions. , they left the house running and screaming, and were shot dead when confronted by the assassins.
It is too early for the Bahian police to say for sure, but, in principle, the perpetrators of the massacre belong to a criminal group called Bonde do Maluko, the most bloodthirsty in Bahia. Preah has already been identified as part of a rival faction that contests drug control in the region, all other adults were killed in the burning of the file, and the deaths of three children were fatal.