Bahia’s police killings pile pressure on Lula’s Workers’ party in Brazil

Nearly 300 people aged 19 and under were killed by Bahian security forces in 2023, making it Brazil's highest rate

Activists have raised the alarm over police violence in the Brazilian state of Bahia, as new figures revealed that more children and adolescents are killed by the region's security forces than anywhere else in the country.

Two hundred and eighty-nine people aged 19 and under were killed by police in Bahia last year, up from 242 in 2022, according to a new report by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) and the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety.