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Concern over real purpose of Rio walls

By More4 News

Updated on 17 December 2009

Are the walls in Rio de Janeiro being built around the city's favelas serving as eco-barriers, or hiding the city's social problems?

Wall by Dona Marta favela in Rio de Janeiro (credit:Reuters)

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, site of 2014 football world cup and 2016 Olympics has begun planning and building over eight miles of so-called "eco-barriers" around hundreds of its sprawling favela slums to protect the rainforest.

But many think that these eco-concerns are serving as cover for another, less benevolent purpose: walling in, and containing, the city's slums.

The state government in Brazil are planning to build eight miles of concrete walls around 19 favelas in Rio De Janeiro.

Dona Marta in the North of the city is where one the controversial walls was finished earlier this year.

Rochinha in the south, home to 150,000 residents, has a new wall under construction.

And in downtown Mare, the biggest cluster of favelas in Rio, the government wants to build a barrier to protect the locals from the sound of a nearby motorway.

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