The infant mortality rate for the period August to November dropped to 15 per thousand births. In a few weeks, the 34 thousand inhabitants witnessed the reversal of a trend which took many developed countries almost a century to achieve. However in December the number of deaths of children again began to increase. The motive was the suspension of the government basic food basket. The child mortality rate had returned to 137 per thousand births and was well on its way to return to the rate for the first half of 1994 - 337 deaths per thousand births.
Brazil is also on top of the list in the area of deaths provoked by work accidents.
The average is 75 deaths per 10 thousand accidents. All the people in question were tortured by the police or army. The denouncement is made in the World Report of Torture which was prepared by the Commission of Human Rights of the United Nations. In the section dealing with Brazil, the UN report deals with cases ranging from torture suffered by farmers involved in land disputes in the north of the country to the group tortured by police in a church in the Morro do Borel shantytown in Rio de Janeiro during the recent army and police anti-drug operations. Even though Brazil has signed the international anti-torture agreement, it is criticized in the report for having made no effort to implement this agreement.