A British journalist and a Brazilian expert on indigenous issues have disappeared in a remote region of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. After receiving threats, the authorities confirmed this Monday, which aroused fears for his safety.
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the foreign correspondent Dom Phillips, 57 years old, disappeared while doing research for a book in the Javari Valley of the Amazon together with the respected expert Bruno Pereira, the British newspaper The Guardian, of which the journalist is a collaborator, initially pointed out.
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Both had traveled by boat to Lake Jaburuin the state of Amazonas (north), and had to return to the city of Atalaia do Norte around 09:00 local time on Sunday.
The Union of Indigenous Organizations of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA) and the Human Rights Observatory of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples (OPI) said in a statement that the men had “received threats while on the ground.”
Pereira, an expert from the Brazilian government agency for indigenous affairs (FUNAI), with a deep knowledge of the region, has regularly received threats from illegal loggers and miners trying to invade the lands of isolated indigenous groups for its exploitation.
FUNAI sources told AFP that they are collaborating with local authorities in the search. And they added that Pereira had obtained a temporary license to devote himself to “personal affairs.”
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What were they investigating?
Phillips and Pereira sought to interview indigenous people around a FUNAI monitoring base, For what they arrived at Lake Jaburu on Friday night, they specified UNIVAJA and OPI.
They began their journey back early Sunday morning, stopping in the community of Sao Rafael, where Pereira had scheduled a meeting with a local leader to discuss “invasions” on his land, according to the statement.
Since the community leader did not arrive, the two men continued to Atalaia do Norte, a journey of about two hours, they said. The last time they were seen was in Sao Gabriel, near Sao Rafael.
They traveled in a new boat with 70 liters of gasoline, “enough for the trip”, and used satellite communication equipment.
According to the newspaper O Globo, two fishermen were detained by the Federal Police on Monday night in relation to the case, including the person with whom they were to meet.
The federal prosecutor’s office reported that it activated the police investigation and a search operation, led by the Navy.
Searches as of Monday afternoon had yielded no results.
What do families and authorities say?
The families of the disappeared expressed their concern, along with organizations and personalitiesincluding former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
“We call on the Brazilian authorities” to do everything possible “to find our beloved Dom,” Paul Sherwood, Phillips’ brother-in-law, wrote on Twitter.
“Time is of the essence,” he added.
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists and the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents of Brazil urged the authorities to act “immediately.”
“I hope they are well, safe and that they are found quickly,” tweeted Lula, who is the favorite in the polls for the October presidential elections against President Jair Bolsonaro, accused for his part of encouraging invasions of indigenous lands in favor of mining and agribusiness.
Phillips, who has also published in The New York Times and The Washington Postis married and lives in Salvador (northeast).
He had traveled with Pereira in 2018 to the Javari Valley for a story in Guardian.
It is an indigenous land of difficult access in the southwest of the state of Amazonas. Some 6,300 indigenous people from 26 different groups live there, 19 of them isolated, according to the NGO Instituto Socioambiental.
In recent years, armed violence has escalated in the area in the presence of illegal miners, hunters and fishermen.
Funai’s local base, set up to protect and assist indigenous people, has suffered several attacks since the end of 2018, including the 2019 shooting death of one of its employees.
Bolsonaro’s harsh response
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, described this Tuesday as “adventure not recommended” the expedition carried out by the British journalist and the Brazilian specialist missing since Sunday in the Amazon, stating that they may even “have been executed”.
“Two people on a boat, in a region like that, completely wild, is an adventure that is not recommended. Anything can happen,” the president said in an interview with the Sbt News network.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP
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