Two bodies were found this Sunday, June 13, in the Amazon, with strong suspicions that they are Dom Phillips, a British journalist for The Guardian, and Bruno Pereira, a Brazilian activist, expert on indigenous issues and employee of the National Indian Foundation. (Funai) and the Union of Indigenous Peoples of Vale do Javari (Unijava). The couple, who reported, had been missing for a week: the trail was lost between the riverside community of São Rafael and the city of Atalaia do Norte, in Vale do Javari, which corresponds to the region with the highest concentration of people. isolated from the world, with immense rivers and tropical forests, near the border with Peru, in the Brazilian state of Amazonas.
The news was advanced by Fred Arruda, Brazilian ambassador to the United Kingdom, to the journalist’s family, in a telephone call, according to the English newspaper The Guardian. “He said that he wanted us to know … that they had found two bodies,” said Paul Sherwood, brother-in-law of Bishop Phillips. “He did not describe the place and only said that it was in the jungle, that they were trapped in a tree and that they had not yet been identified.he added, adding that, according to the ambassador, the identification of the bodies would take place when there was sufficient light.
The mystery and controversy of the disappearance of the British journalist and expert on indigenous people of the Amazon. Dead or lost?
On Saturday, June 11, a group of indigenous volunteers, involved in the search for the journalist and the activist, who disappeared in one of the most remote areas of the Amazon, found objects belonging to the couple in the Javari region of Brazil. Amazon state. This was the place where the trail of the duo, who had returned from a four-day report, was lost. On Sunday, June 12, a statement from the Brazilian federal police said that among the items recovered were a pair of pants, a pair of boots, a health card bearing the name of Bruno Pereira, and a backpack full of Phillips’ clothing.
The disappearance of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira is shrouded in controversy. At stake is investigative work against invaders of the Amazon rainforest — loggers, miners, and others — who have long targeted Unijava.
The newspaper O Globo had access to a letter sent to the organization by fishermen, who practiced illegal fishing. The letter included death threats to Bruno Pereira: “I know that you are the ones who are persecuting the workers who fish to survive, we are tired of this persecution of you indigenous people against the families of the workers. I know who you are and we’re going to find him to settle the score. I know that the one who is against us is the Indian Beto and Bruno from Funai, who orders the Indians to go to the area, arrest our machines and take out our fish”.
Source: Observadora
