Marcos Jose do Espirito Santo, aged 17, and Hemisferio Peres Ferreira, aged 16 were reportedly killed by military police officers in the town of Varzea Grande, Mato Grosso state in November 1993. They were detained along with two other boys on 23 November and, according to one of the youths who survived, taken to a lagoon outside the town where they were shot dead and their bodies thrown into the water. The commander in charge of the officers involved has claimed that the youths were shot escaping from custody. Although a civil and a military investigation have been opened into the killings, the officers suspected of involvement were still on active duty by mid-January 1994.
