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Two bodies were found during a search for a missing British journalist, Dom Phillips, and a missing former indigenous official in the Brazilian Amazon, more than a week away.
The BBC reported on Monday that two bodies were found, but formal identification is pending. The Guardian, a regular contributor to Phillips, spoke with his brother-in-law, Paul Sherwood. He said his family was contacted by the British Embassy about the discovery.
“He told us … he wanted to know that they found two bodies,” Sherwood said, referring to a conversation with the embassy. “He didn’t explain the location, he just said it was in the rainforest, but they were tied to a tree and hadn’t been identified yet.”
“He said they would identify when it was light, or when it was possible,” Sherwood added.
British journalist Dom Phillips is missing: a human who may have been found in the Brazilian Amazon
This was after a Brazilian federal police officer revealed on Sunday night that an item owned by 57-year-old Phillips and 41-year-old former indigenous official Bruno Pereira had been found that afternoon.
The two men were last seen on the morning of June 5 near the territory of the Javanese Valley indigenous people, remote from the Amazon River in Brazil, adjacent to Peru and Colombia. They returned alone to Ataraia de Norte by boat in Itacai, but did not arrive.
The item was discovered Sunday afternoon and was taken by boat to Atalaia de Norte, the city closest to the search.
In a statement on Sunday night, police said they had identified the item as belonging to both the missing men, including a health card and Pereira’s clothing.
Firefighters told reporters at Ataraia de Norte that a backpack identified as Phillips’s was found tied to a half-submerged tree. According to the Associated Press, the area is at the end of the rainy season and part of the forest is flooded.
The laptop was also discovered by a search team concentrating efforts around the Itakai River spot, where a tarpaulin for a boat used by a missing man was discovered on Saturday by volunteers from the Mattis Indigenous Group.
Development began the day after police reported finding traces of blood on a fisherman’s boat arrested as the only suspect in disappearance. Officers also discovered organic matter of possible human origin in the river. The material has been analyzed.
Amarildo da Costa de Riuler, also known as Perado, has been arrested on suspicion of illegal possession of restricted ammunition, but judges detain him for another 30 days as investigations into his disappearance continue. I ordered. Indigenous people with Pereira and Phillips reported that the suspect swung a rifle at them the day before the pair disappeared.
His family told AP that the suspect denied cheating and the gendarmerie tortured him to obtain a confession.
In the area where the two men disappeared, there is a fierce conflict between fishermen, poachers and government agencies. Itaquai is not a known drug trafficking route, but violence is widespread as drug trafficking gangs struggle to manage waterways to ship cocaine.
Pereira, formerly heading the local bureau of the Brazilian government’s indigenous peoples known as FUNAI, participated in several operations against illegal fishing. In such operations, as a rule, fishing gear is seized or destroyed while the fisherman is fined and temporarily detained.
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Only indigenous peoples can legally fish on their territory.
Authorities say the main policy of police investigations on disappearances is to show an international network that pays poor fishermen to illegally fish in the Jabari Valley Reserve, Brazil’s second largest indigenous territory. rice field.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.