British tourist ‘afraid’ to talk to police in Rio
A BRITISH mother of three who was shot in a Brazilian favela is recovering in hospital in Rio de Janeiro after surgery, but is too scared to talk to police, according to local media reports.
“She is able to talk but she is refusing to make a formal statement,” police officer Bruno Gilaberte, who is leading the investigation into the attack on 46-year old Eloise Dixon, told the Estadao agency.
“We have left a questionnaire for Eloise and her husband at the hospital. I think they are still afraid.”
Mr Gilaberte said that officers had identified two suspects who were already known to police and who have previously been investigated for belonging to a gang.
The Dixon family, who are believed to be from Kent, were driving in a rented car from Rio de Janeiro to the colonial town of Paraty when they unwittingly entered the Agua Santa favela, near the resort town of Angra dos Reis, to try to buy water.
Members of a gang who control the favela then approached the car and ordered the occupants to leave. When the family failed to get out, they fired a number of shots at the vehicle.
Mrs Dixon, who was in the passenger’s seat, was hit twice in the abdomen. Bullets also hit the passenger headrest and door and the car’s tyres.
The father, who has been named as Maxwell Dixon, was able to speed off and drive the family to the nearest transport police post, where Mrs Dixon was then rushed to hospital.
The family’s three daughters – aged seven, nine and 13, and all in the back seats – escaped injury.
Doctors said Mrs Dixon was lucky to be alive, as the bullets almost hit major internal organs and arteries.
Rio de Janeiro is in the midst of a deep financial crisis and has suffered a major increase in violent crime since the Olympic Games last year. The number of violent deaths increased by 15 per cent in the state in the first half of the year.