RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Two groups of men stood on opposite rooftops perched on a hillside overlooking Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema beach, taunting one another. It was a macho showdown between opponents wielding unlikely weapons — kites.
On this July morning in the impoverished neighborhood, they were using taut, sharp-edged kite lines — known as “cerol” in Portuguese — to slash their opponents’ lines, ripping their kites from the sky.
Kite fighting has caused horrific injuries and even deaths, and a bill moving through Brazil’s Congress is seeking to prohibit the manufacture, sale and use of the razor-sharp lines nationwide, with violators facing one to three years in prison and a hefty fine.
The lines are already outlawed in some congested areas of Brazil, including Rio, but that didn’t appear to trouble the men jousting with their kites above Ipanema; indeed, some of those flouting the law were police officers. A couple of them called kites their therapy.
“That’s the logic of kite flying: cutting another person’s line,” said Alexander Mattoso da Silva, a military police officer with bulging, tattooed biceps. He goes by “Jarro” and in 2014 he traveled to France to test his mettle at an international kite festival, where he won the kite-fighting competition.
“We always try to fly the kites in suitable places to not put anyone at risk. There’s no risk here, because the kite falls into the woods,” Jarro said, pointing to the tree-covered mountain above which the kites were dancing. Still, there were narrow pedestrian alleyways below.
Kites have a long history in Brazil and are particularly popular in Rio’s favelas, the poor neighborhoods often clinging to the mountains overlooking and surrounding the city, where a cottage industry uses bamboo and tissue paper to produce kites.
For many, kites evoke childhood and light-hearted diversion. And some do fly kites simply to feel the wind’s tug upon a harmless cotton string. But attached to cutting lines, kites can be fatal, particularly when sweeping across highways where speeding motorists struggle to spot them.
While kite-fighting competitions are held safely in designated areas in countries like France and Chile, in Brazil, its widespread, unregulated use has caused numerous accidents over the years.
To try to fend off the danger, motorcyclists affix thin antenna-like posts equipped with razors at the front of their bikes to snip wayward kite lines. The company that administers one of Rio’s main highways regularly hands them out to motorcyclists.
But cases of motorcyclists having a limb severed or throat slit remain common, leading several Brazilian states to pass laws regulating the lines, according to political consulting firm Governmental Radar. The federal bill to outlaw the razor-sharp lines nationwide was approved by Congress’ lower house in February, and is now heading toward a Senate vote.
Kites soaring through the sky are a common sight across Brazil, and are particularly popular in Rio’s low-income communities known as favelas. For most people in the world, kite flying symbolizes light-hearted fun. But in Brazil it can pose a danger when it involves kite fighting. (AP video shot by Mario Lobao and Lucas Dumphreys)
In June, Ana Carolina Silva da Silveira was riding on the back of a motorcycle when a line slashed her neck.
“I went to the hospital screaming that I didn’t want to die,” the 28-year-old lawyer said. “I’m really happy that I’m alive.”
There’s no official data on the number of injuries and deaths nationwide caused by cutting lines. However, since 2019, there have been more than 2,800 reports of illegal use of the lines in Rio state alone, according to the MovRio Institute, a non-profit that runs a hotline.
In Brazil, kites are ubiquitous, with kite flying even recognized as a cultural and historical heritage by legislation passed by Rio’s municipal assembly in 2021. Some say kites were…
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