Credit, Reuters
It's midday in Casavalle, and the silence on the dirt streets contrasts with the gunshots that terrorize residents after the sun sets.
"There are shootings practically every night," reports Silvana de los Santos, who lived her 50th year in this region north of Montevideo.
"My daughter is 10 years old and asks me: 'Mom, what is this? Are they bombs or...?'. And there's no way, there comes a time when I need to tell the truth, because she's growing up," he continues.
At a small fruit and vegetable stand, she speaks to BBC Mundo (BBC's Spanish-language service) a few blocks from the place visited this Saturday (7/11) by the Pope, who was passing through Uruguay, and expresses the hope that this presence will bring a little peace to the region, especially for children.
"Sometimes," says De los Santos, "in public schools, parents have to run out to get their children because of gang conflicts or shootings."
Casavalle comprises several micro-neighborhoods with high population density and records, as several studies point out, greater socioeconomic inequality and higher rates of violence than in other parts of the Uruguayan capital.
This reality, which clashes with the image of tranquility and prosperity often associated with Uruguay, was mentioned by the Pope in his speech there.
"We cannot remain indifferent when we know that there are children in Uruguay who do not go to school for fear of not returning. We cannot silence our conscience when we realize that a mother does not have the means to feed her children", said the pontiff in front of the region's residents.
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"A child of this country, so rich in resources, should not go to sleep without eating, nor should they give up receiving a decent education and future because of the insecurity that prevails on the streets," he stated. "Much less should he suffer violence to the point of losing his life."
'This is violence'
The parish of Casavalle, which received a visit from Leo 14 this Saturday, is called Our Lady of Guadalupe — a temple from 1987 with exposed brick that is experiencing a special movement these days.
At the entrance, a stage was set up to welcome the pontiff with a wooden cross weighing around 130 kilos made by teenagers from Inisa, the Uruguayan institute for the detention of juvenile offenders.
Credit, BBC Mundo
"The Pope comes to Casavalle to remind many Uruguayans that there is life on the other side of Avenida Italia," says Alejandro Andrada, 52, referring to the road that divides Montevideo between the more popular north and the richer south.
Andrada led a social organization in Casavalle that no longer exists and, when walking through the region, he points to streets with open sewage or accumulated trash.
“This is violence,” he comments.
He also notes the solidity of houses built by Spanish and Italian immigrants decades ago, which stand out from other much more precarious and recent housing.
A little further on, two longtime residents describe a Dantesque scene they witnessed shortly before in a garbage dumpster.
"A woman was fighting with a dog because she wanted to eat some pasta that had been thrown away and the dog also wanted to eat it," reports Delmar Sandez, an 86-year-old retiree.
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Rodolfo Arévalo, 67 years old, comments that robberies have become as frequent on these streets as gunshots.
"It's because of drugs, the base paste (of cocaine), between gangs from different neighborhoods," he says.
He's not the only one who thinks this way.
Around two-thirds of the region's residents point to "drugs" as one of the main problems and clashes between groups linked to them as a concern, according to a study by the University of the Republic, published in June, based on research carried out in Casavalle and neighboring neighborhoods.
Last year, the region's police station recorded 39 incidents of homicide, which is equivalent to 44.1 cases per 100,000 inhabitants — the highest rate in Montevideo in that period, according to official data.
This proportion is almost three times the average number of homicides for the entire city (16.5); it is slightly lower than that recorded in the Colombian city of Cali (46.8 per 100 thousand people) and almost double the rate of violent deaths observed in Rio de Janeiro (22.7 per 100 thousand inhabitants).
Experts attribute most of these deaths in Casavalle to conflicts linked to microtrafficking and territorial disputes.
But the region's police station was also the one that registered the highest number of reports of domestic violence in Montevideo last year: 1,377.
Estrella Cuadrado, a 50-year-old street vendor, associates the increase in insecurity with the absence of adults who, in the past, "enforced the neighborhood to be respected."
“Today, those older role models are no longer here,” she says. "They're either in prison or they killed each other."
'Awakening from our inertia'
Father Pablo Coimbra, leader of the local parish, points out that in the neighborhood "there is violence, poverty, drug trafficking", but also "humble and hard-working people who want to succeed in life".
The Church's social works in the region, he explains, include educational centers that offer scholarships to children and young people, professional training workshops — ranging from technology to carpentry — as well as providing food, promoting sports and assisting elderly people abandoned by their families.
More than 130 houses have also been built and renovated in recent years for families linked to the parish.
All of this is financed by the Church itself, by private foundations and, in some cases, by agreements with the State, details Coimbra, who is also an accountant and began his mission in Casavalle six years ago.
"It is not an absent State", he comments, "but it is, rather, an inefficient State".
In his speech there, the Pope called for "the Church, the civil community and the State" to work together.
"We need to wake up from our inertia and defend the common good," said the Pope, who lived in Peru for more than 20 years.
Upon arriving in the neighborhood, the pontiff blessed a set of social housing belonging to the Church that are under construction, a few meters from the parish.
Guadalupe Bongiovanni and Diego Rivero work on this project and warn about insecurity in the region.
“They robbed my son on the corner of my house, with a gun and everything,” says Bongiovanni, 36 years old.
For the papal visit, the neighborhood received hundreds of police officers on foot, on motorcycles, pickup trucks and even in armored vehicles.
The Coimbra parish priest greets residents with familiarity as he walks through the streets.
Suddenly, Lorenzo Álvarez, a 71-year-old retiree, approaches the priest to inform him that his house was robbed while he was away.
Coimbra recalls that, last year, he himself faced a known thief in the region to demand that he stop robbing residents.
"I'm going to kill you," the man replied.
The parish priest then registered a police report because of the threat. And he continued with his tasks.
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