Had he lived Josildo de Moura would have celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary this December. Instead the devoted husband and father of five died of Covid in May, gasping for breath outside a neighbourhood clinic on the outskirts of São Paulo. He was 62, and like the vast majority of Brazilians, still waiting to be vaccinated.

“The pain is endless,” says his wife Cida, sitting at her kitchen table, ringed by her children and grandchildren. “And every day we hear about more families suffering as we suffer, losing a loved one.”

The losses here are staggering. More than half a million Brazilians have died with Covid-19, the second highest death toll worldwide, behind only the United States. Experts here predict their country is on course to overtake the US.

How did it come to this, in a middle-income country, with an established system for vaccinating against diseases? For many, responsibility rests with Brazil’s far-right President, Jair Bolsonaro.

“He could have helped everybody take the right measures,” says Cida, who has an unwavering voice, and tight grey curls. “He did the complete opposite. He didn’t have respect for the people. It’s really revolting.”

Even as Brazil is still burying its dead, the handling of the pandemic is being dissected by the Brazilian senate. The hearings, which began in April, are broadcast live. For many here they have become must-watch TV, a kind of telenovela of tragedy and explosive testimony.

Evidence from a representative of the vaccine manufacturer Pfizer was particularly damning. He told the inquiry the company repeatedly offered to sell the government vaccines last year. It was ignored – for months. Over 100 emails were unanswered.

Another witness at the inquiry accused President Bolsonaro of turning a blind eye to irregularities and massive overcharging, in a contract to buy an unapproved Covid vaccine from India. The President has denied any knowledge, and any wrongdoing.

The inquiry is headed by the opposition senator, Omar Aziz, a towering figure from the hard-hit state of Amazonas, who fist-bumps his way through the corridors of parliament. His own brother, Walid, is among the dead. He lost a life-long friend to the virus on the day we met.

“What saves lives is two jabs in the arms of Brazilians,” he told us. “If the government had bought vaccines early, we would have saved a lot of lives. We have a President who does not believe in science. He believes in herd immunity.” The senator insists his inquiry is not partisan. “The virus does not choose political parties,” he told us. “Everyone is dying.”

From the outset of the pandemic, the Brazilian leader has been dismissive of Covid-19, calling it “a little flu.” Asked last year about deaths from the virus he replied “that’s a question for a grave digger”.

He has scorned social distancing, insisting the economy must remain open, and said staying home is “for idiots”. Just last month he was fined for not wearing a mask as he led a motorbike rally of his supporters.

As the president has minimized the risks, Professor Pedro Hallal has counted the dead. He is an epidemiologist, leading the largest Covid study in Brazil. As a scientist, and as a Brazilian, he says it has been a waking nightmare.

“At some point in life everyone has that dream in which they can’t move, or can’t shout,” he says. “This is exactly my feeling for these 16 months. I have been trained to understand what is happening in a pandemic and I say that and no one in the government is listening. As we are speaking today another 2,000 Brazilians will die.”

Professor Hallal, who has lost several friends, says his country has been a laboratory for everything that could be done wrong in a pandemic. The result, according to his research, is 400,000 deaths that could have been avoided, a quarter of them (100,000) caused by the failure to sign vaccine contracts last year.

“Everything that you should not do,” he said “Brazil has done.”

“It said that the pandemic would not be important. In April last year, our president said it is coming to an end. Then he said the vaccines were not safe. These statements from the president himself produced damage, and they killed people and this is what needs to be said.”

Professor Hallal, who has given evidence at the inquiry, has a message for the Brazilian leader. “Just quit your job,” he said. “This is the best thing you can do to help Brazil.”

There’s little likelihood of that, but Jair Bolsonaro is under pressure on several fronts. While the Senate inquiry is not expected to lead to his impeachment, the Supreme Court has authorized a criminal investigation. His approval ratings are at an all-time low and there have been a series of nationwide protests.

If President Bolsonaro is troubled by the gathering storm, or the soaring death toll, he isn’t showing it. He has political allies and die-hard supporters.

With so many dead, Cida de Moura struggles to understand how he remains in office. “He is still in power as if nothing has happened,” she told us. “He should have been pushed out. I would like to hear that Bolsonaro is not president of Brazil any more.”

Like many of the bereaved she is hoping that Brazil’s dead will speak, and there will be a reckoning at elections next year, if not before.

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WORLD STATS

Most were detained after a gun battle at a house in the capital Port-au-Prince where they were holed up.

Bloodied and bruised, suspects were paraded in front of media on Thursday, along with a slew of seized weapons.

Eight more suspects are still on the run and three others were shot dead by police officers.

Police say they are still searching for the masterminds behind the attack.

In the early hours of Wednesday, a group of gunmen broke into the president’s home in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and shot him and his wife. Mr Moïse was found lying on his back with 12 bullet wounds and a gouged eye, and died at the scene, according to authorities.

His wife Martine was seriously injured and has been flown to Florida for treatment, where she is said to be in a stable condition.

Police said the hit squad included 15 Colombians and two Haitian-Americans.

Angry civilians had joined in the search for the gunmen, and helped police track down some of them who were hiding in bushes.

“We Haitians are appalled, we do not accept it,” one man told AFP news agency. “We are ready to help because we need to know who is behind this, their names, their background so that justice can do its job.”

The crowd later set fire to three of the suspects’ cars and destroyed evidence. The police chief called for calm, saying the public should not take the law into their own hands.

Taiwan confirmed that 11 of the suspects were arrested at its embassy, where they had broken into one of its courtyards.

The motive for the attack is still unclear. However, Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph told the BBC that the 53-year-old president may have been targeted because he was fighting corruption.

At the news conference on Thursday, police also showed reporters Colombian passports. “Foreigners came to our country to kill the president,” Mr Charles said, as the suspects sat on the floor behind him in handcuffs.

Colombia’s government has confirmed that at least six of the suspects appeared to be retired members of its military. It has pledged to assist Haiti with its investigation efforts.

The US state department, meanwhile, said it could not confirm if any of its citizens had been detained.

However US and Canadian media are reporting that one of the dual citizens arrested, James Solages, 35, is from Florida and was a former bodyguard at the Canadian embassy in Haiti.

An investigating judge told local media that Mr Solages and the other US citizen, named as Joseph Vincent, had said they were there as translators for the mercenaries, after finding the job on the internet.

“The mission was to arrest President Jovenel Moïse… and not to kill him,” Judge Clément Noël told Haiti’s Le Nouvelliste newspaper.

Colombian daily El Tiempo said that it had seen confidential documents that named the Colombian suspects. The paper’s research suggests that four of them flew from Colombia to the Dominican Republic on 4 June.

They crossed by land from there into Haiti two days later. The two countries share the island of Hispaniola.

According to El Tiempo, Colombian intelligence agents have seen photos in which members of the group pose at a popular tourist spot in the Dominican Republic, which they had uploaded to their social media accounts.

The killing has triggered some civil unrest in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas. A state of emergency remains in force across the country, while the Dominican Republic has closed its border.

Heavily armed assassins stormed the president’s home in the hills above Port-au-Prince at around 01:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

Video released after the shooting appeared to show men dressed in black pretending to be US drugs agents, shouting: “DEA [US Drug Enforcement Administration] operations, everybody stay down!”

The president’s office and bedroom were ransacked during the attack.

The couple’s daughter Jomarlie and sons Jovenel Jr and Joverlein are reportedly in a safe location. Jomarlie survived by hiding in a bedroom, while two domestic staff members were tied up by the attackers.

The assassination has prompted confusion over who should be in charge of Haiti – the rules are complex and open to interpretation.

Further complicating matters is that Mr Moïse died close to the end of his time in office and there is currently no National Assembly in Haiti because its mandate ran out after the 2019 elections did not happen.

Amendments to the current constitution suggest the prime minister should lead, but Mr Joseph’s legitimacy is disputed. During his four years in office, Mr Moïse had six prime ministers and on Monday, a day before he was killed, he had nominated a seventh, Ariel Henry.

Mr Henry had not yet been sworn in, but insists he should be in charge. Mr Joseph, who is interim prime minister, told the BBC he was “puzzled” by Mr Henry’s statement.

The UN has said Mr Joseph should remain in charge until elections are held later this year.

He has said he will not stand for the presidency. “I’m not here to stay too long. We need to hold elections. I do not have a personal agenda,” he said.

Even before President Moïse’s assassination, the situation in Haiti was marked by instability and there had been widespread protests demanding his resignation.

Parliamentary elections should have been held in October 2019 but disputes delayed them, meaning Mr Moïse had been ruling by decree.