Gangs Of Rio De Janeiro By Joao De Carvalho

Rio de Janeiro with about 10 million people is one of the most violent cities in the world. Portuguese photographer Joao de Carvalho created one of the most powerful photojournalistic sets showing the life in the slums. He says: "I decided to start documenting this reality because I was driven into a curiosity of what took the city to get into this extreme of violence that happens today. I had the chance to be on the side of different police units while doing their work inside the slums, I had also the opportunity to follow and document the side of young men with an average age of 18, being the bosses of communities because they are drug traffickers in a territory whee the Brazilian state simply doesn't exist, so sometimes they replace it, providing neighbors with food, medicines, amongst other basic needs."
Rio de Janeiro ("River of January"), commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, 6th largest in the Americas and receives more international visitors than any other city in the Southern Hemisphere.