A 10-year-old girl was struck by a stray bullet on Saturday afternoon, August 22, while playing on a bounce house in Sapiranga, a city in the Sinos Valley region near Porto Alegre in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The case was first reported by G1 Rio Grande do Sul, which gathered details from local authorities.

According to police, the child felt a burning sensation in her arm during play and was taken to Sapiranga Hospital for treatment. An X-ray showed the bullet had lodged in her right forearm. She underwent surgery to have the projectile removed.

Witnesses at the scene told police they did not hear any gunshots, which complicates efforts to pinpoint the exact moment the girl was hit. As of the G1 report, civil police in Sapiranga had not identified where the shot came from or named any suspects.

What is known so far

A timeline of the case: the girl was playing on an inflatable bounce house when she felt the wound; she was taken to the municipal hospital; exams confirmed a bullet lodged in her forearm; the projectile was removed in surgery; and the origin of the shot remains under police investigation.

Stray bullet cases in Brazil are notoriously hard to investigate, since there is no identifiable target and often no witness who can pinpoint the moment of the shot. Sapiranga's civil police are continuing to trace the bullet's trajectory and origin, but G1 did not report a timeline for the investigation's conclusion or a date for the next update.