A British woman has been shot twice in Brazil after she and her family accidentally drove into a favela run by a drug gang while reportedly looking for water.



Local media named the woman as Eloise Dixon, reportedly aged 46 and from Dartford, Kent. Local police said she had been holidaying with her husband, named as Maxwell Neil Dixon, and their three children, at a popular coastal getaway destination, Angra dos Reis, about 90 miles from Rio de Janeiro.



A language mix-up saw them directed to the Agua Santa neighbourhood, which translates as Holy Water, local press said.



Authorities said a group approached the car in a favela and apparently told the family to get out and then opened fire. A police statement said the woman was hit in the abdomen and was being treated in hospital.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Angra dos Reis is a popular tourist area on Rio de Janeiro’s ‘green coast’. Photograph: AGF/UIG via Getty

The family, who are thought to live in Bromley, south London, had been on the main road from Rio to Santos but took a wrong turn on Sunday while looking for a place to buy water – agua in Portuguese – and entered the favela, according to local media. They had apparently misinterpreted the information they were given about where they could find a place to buy water.



A local police detective, Bruno Gilaberte, said his officers were trying to confirm those reports, which had come from highway police. “They were confronted by criminals who ordered them to get out, and the car was hit by shots from a firearm,” Gilaberte said.



“Because of the language difficulties, there was some confusion. They ended up going to the Agua Santa neighbourhood where they were targeted by criminals. They were shot at after failing to understand the order they were given to leave the area.”

Dixon’s husband, who was driving, returned to the main road after the shooting and kept driving until reaching a highway police post where the victim was rushed to hospital.“underwent surgery in the Angra dos Reis hospital and was in a “stable” condition,” Gilaberte said.

Sebastião Faria, the general director of the Japuíba hospital in Angra dos Reis where Dixon is being cared for, said she was in a stable condition.

Faria said: “She is fine. After her surgery she is fine, with the expectation of being discharged within 48-72 hours. She was hit in the abdomen and another bullet grazed her thorax.” He said highway police brought the family into the hospital at about 3.30pm local time on Sunday. “At first they were very shocked but then they calmed down. The surgery was very successful.”

Rodrigo Mucheli, the medical director of the hospital, told Brazil’s TV Globo that Dixon was lucky to be alive. “The projectile went through the abdomen and luckily did not get big blood vessels or important organs. It was really very lucky,” he said.

TV Globo showed the family’s rented silver Renault and said Eloise Dixon had been in the passenger seat and her husband had been driving, with the children in the back seat. Globo showed a bullet hole in the front passenger door, two burst tyres, and a bullet mark in the passenger seat headrest.

Gilaberte said police had begun an investigation. “We have some information and we are following some interesting inquiry lines and we believe we will have a response soon,” he said. But the family declined to make a statement to police who tried to interview them on Monday, Gilaberte added.

“One of our teams went to the hospital and the family is still very shaken. It is only natural that they did not want to make statements, even out of fear,” he said. “It is a feeling of insecurity expected from anyone who went through a trauma like this.”

The Rio area has many favelas, which house communities of working-class Brazilians. Some are seen as no-go areas.

Vinicius Barbosa, the deputy chief executive of the Angra dos Reis government, condemned the authorities’ lack of control over high-crime areas “where you can’t go in, where the media can’t go in, where services can’t go in – this is intolerable,” AFP reported.



Gilaberte said the Agua Santa favela was controlled by the Red Command, one of the most violent drug gangs in Brazil, which also controlled favelas in Rio de Janeiro. “It is a risk area, no doubt. We would advise people that because of the risk they should avoid the area,” he said.



Violent crime is spiralling out of control in Rio de Janeiro state, where the government has been struggling to pay police salaries, gun battles break out in favelas on a daily basis, and the homicide rate for the first half of this year was the highest since 2009. On 28 July, thousands of soldiers began patrolling Rio streets in an attempt to reduce the violence.



An Italian tourist was shot dead in December last year after he and a friend entered the Rio favela Prazeres on motorbikes by mistake. An Argentinian woman was shot in February after the car she, her husband and another couple were in mistakenly entered the same favela. She later died from her injuries.



Rio has also seen cases of local residents being shot and killed after entering favelas run by drug gangs by mistake. Those living in or needing to visit gang-run favelas lower their windows and switch on hazard and interior lights before entering.



A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are in touch with the local authorities in Angra dos Reis, Brazil, following reports of the shooting of a British national.”



