Investigations into British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous activist Bruno Pereira, who have been missing for a week in a remote area of the Amazon, have reached a turning point with the discovery of personal belongings belonging to them.
“Items belonging to the missing persons were found: a medical card, black pants, a black sandal and a pair of boots belonging to Bruno Pereira, and a pair of boots and a backpack belonging to Dom Phillips, which contained staff clothing,” said the Confederate Police of Amazonas State (northwestern Brazil). ) in a press release on Sunday.
Earlier, Amazon firefighters had informed the local press of the discovery of personal belongings that may be among those missing found “near the home” of Amarildo Costa de Oliveira, the only detainee in the case.
The often threatened leader
This 41-year-old man, dubbed a “suspect,” was taken into custody and blood stains on his boat were to be analyzed. Witnesses said they saw him speed past in a boat going in the same direction as the journalist and the native.
During this trip, Bruno Pereira, 41, an expert with Brazil’s government agency for indigenous affairs (Funai), served as a tour guide for Dom Phillips, 57. This contributor to Britain’s The Guardian newspaper was preparing a book on environmental protection in this region, which is taking part in the border between Peru and Colombia and is home to 8.5 million hectares of protected indigenous land.
According to local indigenous activists, Bruno Pereira has often been threatened because of his fight against encroachments on indigenous land. The two men traveled together by boat through the Javarí Valley region, a remote region in the far western Amazon, conducting interviews for this book. They were last seen on June 5 in the town of Sao Gabriel, not far from their final destination, the city of Atalaia do Norte.
A rally in Rio de Janeiro
Police said on Sunday that search teams traveled about 25 km in the seventh day of work, conducting “careful searches through the jungle, area roads and flooded vegetation,” particularly in the area where a boat believed to belong to the suspect was found .
Footage released by police on Sunday shows officers in white waterproof suits and latex gloves working in small canoes in an area of flooded vegetation surrounded by trees.
Several dozen people, mostly relatives and friends of the two missing, gathered on Sunday at the famous Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, where the British journalist paddled every morning before moving to Salvador (northeast) with his Brazilian wife Alessandra last year.
“At first we had wild hopes that they had sensed the danger and hid in the jungle. But not anymore,” commented Maria Lucia Farias, 78, Dom Phillips’ mother-in-law, with a sad face.
“They are no longer with us”
According to The Guardian, she then issued an even more pessimistic statement on Instagram: “They are no longer with us. Mother Nature gave her a grateful hug.” Ms. Farias added, “Their souls have joined those of so many others who gave their lives in defense of the forest and indigenous peoples.”
President Jair Bolsonaro’s government has been criticized by relatives of the disappeared and indigenous groups, and even by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, for its delay in conducting searches.
The far-right head of state, who described the two men’s expedition as an “inadvisable adventure”, replied on Friday at the America summit in Los Angeles that the armed forces and police had been “researching tirelessly” since day one.