A New Death In Brazil As Protests Get Violent During Confederation Cup Semifinals

The semifinals of the soccer Confederations Cup was the background of another violent bout of demonstrations in Brazil. The confrontations between protesters and police turned the town of Fortaleza into a battlefield, which resulted in the death of a teenager.

The 16-year-old Igor Oliveira da Silva was run over by a motorbike in the district of Guarujá while he tried to escape the demonstrations on his bicycle. Another teenager was injured. The driver, who was himself trying to get away from the protests, was arrested and charged with manslaughter, reports Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Globo.

This brings the number of total victims to six in the course of two weeks of demonstrations all around the country. The first one happened on June 20, a week after the beginning of the movement, when 18-year-old Marcos Delefrate was run over by a car in the neighborhood of Ribeirão Preto, in São Paulo. The driver, Alexsandro Ishisato de Azevedo, who drove onto a crowded street despite warnings, was arrested.

Two other women perished in a car accident on June 24 in Goiás. On Wednesday, Doulas Henrique Oliveira, 21, fell off a bridge in Belo Horizonte. Daniel de Oliveira, 28, fell with him and was severely injured. However, the most commented case to date is 54-year-old Cleonice Moraes, who perished from inhaling tear gas. Moraes was doing her job as an overnight cleaning lady when the protests broke, and she inhaled the deadly amount of gas as she was trying to leave the site, reported online news site Brasil 247.

The latest demonstration began as a peaceful march on the avenues that lead to the stadium where Spain and Italy were playing for a spot in the soccer cup final. Police were ready for a breakout of violence, but they were not able to contain the violent groups before it was too late.

Three other demonstrators and a police officer were injured in the confrontation.