Police find missing British reporter's belongings at Amazon

Brazilian soldiers sit on a boat during the search operation for British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in Atalaia do Norte, Amazonas state, Brazil June 13, 2022. (Photo: Reuters)

Sunday, Brazilian police announced that search crews had located the possessions of missing British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira. They vanished a week ago in the Amazon rainforest.

According to a police statement, clothing belonging to Pereira, including a health identity card in his name, and a rucksack containing items belonging to Phillips, as well as the boots of both men, were discovered.

The Equinox bag carrying clothing and a laptop was discovered tied to a half-submerged tree trunk where the two men were last seen on Sunday, according to a firefighter who led a search squad.

Elizeu Mayaruna, an employee of the indigenous organization Funai, told Reuters that he discovered clothing, a tarp, and a bottle of motor oil while combing the forest beside the Itacoai river on Saturday.

Mayaruna and two other members of an indigenous search team familiar with Pereira, a former Funai official, reported that they recognized his shirt and jeans.

Last Sunday, witnesses reportedly spotted Pereira and Phillips, a freelance journalist who has written for the Guardian and the Washington Post, traveling along this river.

The two guys were on a reporting mission in the isolated rainforest region near the Peruvian and Colombian border, home to the most significant number of uncontacted indigenous people in the world. The anarchic and rugged territory has attracted cocaine-trafficking gangs, illicit loggers, miners, and hunters.

The news of their disappearance has reverberated worldwide, with Brazilian luminaries ranging from soccer legend Pele to musician Caetano Veloso pressing President Jair Bolsonaro to intensify the hunt.

Witnesses from Reuters observed the riverside where Mayaruna found the garments sealed off by police on Sunday morning as investigators combed the area using six boats to transport police, soldiers, and firefighters back and forth.

Divers also discovered a large, black Equinox-branded rucksack with books, a laptop, and clothing on Sunday afternoon, according to a report from the daily O Estado de S.Paulo, citing a state firefighting spokesperson from Amazonas.

The Brazilian government did not immediately react to the search results.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who faced challenging questions from Phillips at news conferences last year over the weakening of environmental law enforcement in Brazil, stated last week that the two men "were on an adventure that is not recommended" and that they should have been executed.

State police officers in the probe told Reuters that they are focusing on poachers and illegal fishers in the area, who frequently clashed with Pereira as he organized indigenous patrols of the local reservation.

Police have arrested one fisherman, Amarildo da Costa, also known as "Pelado," on a weapons charge and are holding him in custody as they investigate his possible involvement in the men's disappearance.

Costa's attorneys and family have stated that he fished legally on the river and denied involvement in the guys' abduction.

A total of 150 soldiers were dispatched via riverboats to search for the two missing men and interrogate locals, joining the indigenous search teams who had been seeking the men for a week.

Publish : 2022-06-13 07:39:00

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