Brazil buries schoolchildren

The sister of Karime Lorraine cries during her brother's burial at the Jardim da Saudade cemetery, 50 Km from Rio de Janeiro, on Friday. Karime is a victim of a school shooting which left yesterday 12 children dead.Photo: AFP

Grief-stricken relatives threw themselves upon caskets and wept to exhaustion as Rio buried most of the 12 children killed in a school shooting. The massacre shocked Brazilians -- and stoked new calls for stricter guns laws.
Sobbing and embracing family members as she watched the body of her 14-year-old niece Milena Santos Nascimento placed into a tomb, Ana Rosa Nascimento Alves could barely shake off the shock to describe her pain.
"Milena was a dreamer," she said. "Unfortunately, this madman came and ended her dreams."
It was the sentiment of a nation that watched repeated funerals Friday, services attended by upward of a thousand people each.
Also yesterday a police official said two men have been detained and questioned for allegedly helping provide a gun to a man who entered the Rio de Janeiro school, opened fire and killed at least 12 children before taking his own life.
One of the men allegedly put the gunman in touch with the other, who allegedly then sold a pistol to the gunman illegally, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she is not authorized to discuss the case.
A day earlier, 10 girls and two boys aged from 12 to 15 were gunned down inside the Tasso da Silveira public school, most lined up along a wall and shot in the head at point-blank range. The shooter, identified as 23-year-old Wellington Oliveira, killed himself with one of his pistols after being confronted by police.