In 1993 off-duty policemen gunned down eight street children living outside one of Rio's most famous landmarks. This random killing, which became known as the Candelaria Massacre, shocked the world.

Of the 70 children living rough in front of Candelaria Church at the time, 62 survived. Now 44 are dead - most never making it into their 20s. Tieta is one of the few survivors not to have died in violent circumstances.

"That's why I'm lucky. I survived the massacre and the seven years that followed - which was perhaps the more difficult thing to do," he says.

Today, the withdrawn 26-year-old is a recycler, collecting discarded paper in downtown Rio. He earns just £90 a month and lives in a wooden shack that makes houses in the neighbouring slum look luxurious.

For this interview, Tieta insists on using his street name, fearing identification will cause him to be ostracised.

"Only a few of us have managed to get a new life after the massacre, but we did so by ourselves.

"Being a child of Candelaria carries a lot of stigma. I never tell anyone that I lived there."

After the police shooting was splashed across the world's media, the international community donated millions of pounds to help Brazil's unwanted street children.

Despite publicity, money and countless pledges of support, the children of Candelaria were quickly forgotten. Since then, the vast majority of Tieta's former street companions have died in violent circumstances.

Most Brazilians felt revulsion when the Candelaria Massacre once again portrayed their country as a corrupt, lawless place where the innocent were victimised by those in power.

But, surprisingly, the nation failed to provide long-term support for the 62 children who survived the shooting.

While Brazil has done much over the years to reduce the number of youngsters living rough, the high-profile Candelaria kids were bizarrely left to fend for themselves.

Most of the 44 died anonymous deaths, having become involved with Rio's drug trade. Killed in street brawls or at the hands of drug-dealers, they never managed to escape the poverty trap that forced them on to the streets. Some died of disease - several caught AIDS - while others were killed in shoot-outs with police, having fallen into a life of petty crime.

Cristina Leonardo, a lawyer for the Candelaria children, believes the social projects established immediately after the massacre were inadequate because the country soon lost interest in the Candelaria survivors.

"At the beginning, when the media interest was at its height, a lot of people helped these children. But as soon as interest began to wane, the projects collapsed because there was no real political will, so most of the children ended up back on the streets."

One of these was Sandro do Nascimento. Last month, the 21-year-old became the 44th former Candelaria child to die in the last seven years. Like many of his fellow street children, Nascimento was never given a stable home after the 1993 shooting. Having been abandoned by his mother when he was just three years old, he spent most of his life on the streets. He made money through crime and forgot his woes through drugs.

Despite recent attempts to inject some normality into his life by settling down with a girlfriend, it became almost inevitable that Nascimento would die young. But few would have expected him to live his final hours on national television.

After committing a petty theft, Nascimento jumped on a bus to escape detection. Police were alerted and raced after him. High on drugs, the youngster hijacked the bus and held the passengers hostage for four hours.

Local TV raced to the scene and filmed Nascimento forcing female passengers to write messages in red lipstick on the windows of the bus. One read: "he has a pact with the devil."

Agreeing to negotiate, Nascimento got out of the bus holding a female hostage at gunpoint. Instead of calming him down, nervous officers opened fire and in reaction Nascimento shot dead the young woman. In the melee that followed, police managed to overpower him. He was bundled into a van where officers suffocated him to death.

Yvonne Bezerra de Mello was one of the few social workers who helped the Candelaria children after the massacre.

She is not surprised by Nascimento's violent end, or indeed the other 43 deaths.

"A lot of money was sent to help these children get a better life, but they never saw a penny of it. More than 300 organisations claimed to be helping street children, but in reality only four did anything practical.

"That's why so many of the Candelaria survivors have died: because they weren't given the support to improve their lives."

Of all the children living outside Candelaria Church at the time of the attack, only eight were older than 15, while the rest were aged between five and 14.

De Mello believes their impressionable young age was one reason why they easily slipped backed into a life of drugs and crime.

Of the other Candelaria children still alive, three are sleeping rough; 10 are in prison or juvenile detention centres; and one is living in Switzerland, having been adopted.

One of them, an 18-year-old girl called Elisabet, is married and has two children. She lives with her grandmother in one of Rio's many shantytowns. Another one, a 15-year-old boy, is dying from AIDS.

Fabio da Silva - or Baby as he was known - lived sporadically outside Candelaria. Unlike the vast majority of the Candelaria children, Baby is one of the few to have made something of his life.

The 23-year-old explains that his relatively solid family background is one reason why he has been able to carve a new life for himself. "Most of the children in Candelaria didn't even know who their parents were," he says. "I didn't get on with mine, but at least I had some.

"Many people made promises to us after the massacre but few of them did anything."

Baby, who started living on the streets just after his eighth birthday, has found hope through music. Immediately after the massacre, de Mello put him in contact with a local samba school where he became the cleaner and learned to play instruments.

"The massacre changed my life because I saw how easy it was to die," he says. "At the samba school I learnt about harmony and composition. That is when I started to love music and have a reason to live."

Baby now lives in a rented room and dreams of becoming a successful samba player in one of Rio's top bands. He accepts that these dizzying heights of musical success are a long way off, but says he is determined to struggle on.

"Samba taught me to live again," he says. "I've been lucky enough to rebuild my life. I just hope my example can help the others who survived to have dreams of their own."