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RIO DE JANEIRO — A crowd of one million gathered here last Tuesday for the opening mass of World Youth Day, a Catholic extravaganza that this year included a visit by Pope Francis. Rio’s archbishop, Orani Tempesta, started the ceremony on a somber note, reminding attendees that July 23 also marked the 20th anniversary of the killing of eight homeless children in front of Candelária church, one of the most revered Catholic sanctuaries in this most Catholic of nations.

The details of what happened that night in 1993 aren’t clear. What is known is that dozens of young people were sleeping outside the imposing neoclassical building when off-duty police officers pulled up sometime after 11 p.m. and opened fire after reportedly being taunted by some boys in the group.

Four of the children died right there on the church steps. One was killed as he tried to run; another died days later from bullet wounds. Two were taken to a park nearby and finished off there. Six of the eight who died were under 18. The youngest was 11.

Of the nine men suspected of being involved in the shooting, three were sentenced to long prison terms. All have since been released.

Wagner dos Santos — 20 years old at time — was one of the youth sleeping at the base of the church that night. He took eight bullets. They have left him with lead poisoning, hearing loss and impaired movement in his face. He testified against the officers responsible, but had to leave Brazil for Switzerland in 1996 after suffering another attempt on his life.

“For me, 20 years have passed but little has changed,” he said in an open letter to Brazilian authorities delivered last week, on the anniversary of the killings. “It’s been 20 years of not being respected by government officials, of a lack of public policies that target poor black youth. There is no investment in children. It’s easier to kill them than care for them.”

Brazil has changed substantially since the Candelária killings, leaving behind the economic and political crises of the 1990s to attain steady, even heady, growth and stability. Unemployment has fallen to record lows, half of the population is now middle class, and the inequality that was once this country’s hallmark has become a little less glaring.

But few of these changes have benefited those at the very bottom of the social pyramid, and young, black and poor boys like Wagner remain particularly vulnerable to violence.

Of the 52,198 people killed in Brazil in 2011, 18,387 were young black men between the ages of 15 and 29 — that’s more than 35 percent of the total. And of the 231,000 young people between the ages of 14 and 25 who were murdered in Brazil from 2002 to 2010, 53 percent were black. Even as the murder rate of whites in that category fell by almost 40 percent, it increased by more than 18 percent for blacks. Homeless children are especially exposed, and according to the 2011 census, of the 23,973 homeless children and teenagers who were living in Brazilian cities, the majority were black or mixed race (almost 73 percent) and male (almost 72 percent).

This unchanging reality was visible during the small vigil held in front of Candelária church on July 18. Wagner’s sister, Patricia de Oliveira, helps organize the event every year along with relatives of other young people who died violently in Rio. This year, it had to be scheduled for an earlier date because the 23rd, the actual anniversary, was World Youth Day, and part of the city was shut down for the throngs expected to gather for the giant mass on the beach.

On the white cobblestoned sidewalk the outline of eight small bodies had been painted in red. On the grass median there were white flowers and candles, Amnesty International posters and photos with the faces and names of some of the children who have died at the hands of police, in shoot-outs or from beatings in juvenile facilities over the past 20 years. The victims were, like Wagner, mostly poor and black.

Across the street, away from the lights and the fuss, stood three skinny kids in rags, their dark eyes fixed on the table piled with bottles of Coke, bananas and vanilla cupcakes.