"How am I going to get that out of her head?", says the father of a survivor of the attack in Blumenau.
"When I received the news, I was devastated," said one of the parents outside the daycare center, where police, firefighters, and authorities gathered with the parents after the attack.
BLUMENAU, Santa Catarina (Reuters) Desperate parents rushed to the Cantinho do Bom Pastor daycare center in Blumenau on Wednesday morning after learning that a 25-year-old man had broken into the facility and killed four children, fearing that their own children might be among the victims.
"When I received the news, I was devastated," said one of the parents outside the daycare center, where police, firefighters, and authorities gathered with the parents after the attack. "It's complicated, I came back here, but thank God my daughter wasn't among the victims," he stated.
In Wednesday's attack, three boys and one girl were killed in an attack carried out with a hatchet, while four other injured students were taken to a hospital and are in stable condition. A fifth child suffered minor injuries. The perpetrator surrendered to police as soon as he left the daycare center.
"My daughter is physically fine, but emotionally she is devastated. How am I supposed to get this out of her head?" the father added.
The attack in Santa Catarina was the second fatality at an educational institution in the country in just over a week, following an incident in which a 13-year-old student stabbed a teacher to death and injured others at a state school in the Vila Sônia neighborhood, in the western part of São Paulo city, on March 27.
While Santa Catarina observes a three-day period of official mourning, authorities are discussing the motives behind the attack and failures in its prevention.
"We are failing miserably with children and adolescents," said the Minister of Human Rights and Citizenship, Silvio Almeida, while participating in a ceremony to launch a ministry guide to help elect child protection councilors in 2023, shortly after the attack.
"It's the fault of Brazilian society, of the Brazilian state, of the way we have treated the children and adolescents of this country for a long time, of the way society in general, the governments, I would say all entities, business entities, everyone, of the way we have treated the children of this country."