An 18-year-old protester has been killed and dozens injured as massive protests continue in Brazil’s cities. Over a million people have flooded the streets of the country on Thursday.
One person has been killed and three more injured after they were hit by a car in the town of Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paulo state. Witnesses say that the car tried to break a human chain created by protesters. Apparantly outraged because he was being blocked, the driver accelerated the vehicle and ran over the four.
Three people were taken to hospital with fractures, one of them in serious condition. Delefrate Marcos, 18, died at the scene.
Mass protests continue throughout Brazil this week as hundreds of thousands assemble in the main cities of Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro with no sign of subsiding even as governments reverse course on planned public transit fare hikes.
Throngs of demonstrators clogged the main streets of major cities, and assembled in smaller municipalities across the country, matching or even exceeding the numbers seen earlier in the week, when hundreds of thousands came out nationwide.
In Rio, authorities expected as many as a million protesters, despite recent announcements by state governments that they would scrap plans to increase public transportation costs.
The planned fare hikes, which had been the initial catalyst of the protests that have now rocked Brazil since Monday, seem to have become a sidenote as protesters now carry placards demanding the government address chronic corruption and other issues.