South Africa: Maré and the Cape Flats - Where Violence Becomes a Public Health Crisis

"Stay together." That was the advice we were given as we stepped off our minibus and boarded a local bus instead - the kind that locals would recognize, not the kind that would draw attention - to reach Redes da Maré's office in Complexo da Maré, a favela in Rio de Janeiro. On the surface, Maré looked like any other busy neighbourhood. Children played in the streets while residents escaped the afternoon heat by sitting outside their homes, chatting with neighbours. Shops buzzed with customers, and motorcycles wove through the narrow lanes. Yet beneath that rhythm of everyday life lay a community shaped by decades of poverty, territorial disputes between armed groups and heavily militarised policing. As journalists visiting Rio during the 26th International AIDS Conference, we found the tou