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Two bodies found in the Brazilian Amazon where British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenist Bruno Pereira disappeared a week ago. According to the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, “the bodies have already been sent to Brasilia for DNA testing.”
In the midst of confusion and uncertainty for a week due to the disappearance of the British journalist and contributor to the newspaper ‘The Guardian’, Dom Phillips, and the indigenist Bruno Pereira Araújo, an expert from the Government Agency for Indigenous Affairs of Brazil (Funai) Two bodies were found on Monday, June 13, in the Javari Valley, a remote region of the Brazilian Amazon near the borders with Peru and Colombia.
To establish the identity of the victims, the authorities subject the bodies to forensic expert analysis. However, according to Brazilian diplomats consulted by ‘The Guardian’, it is feared that the bodies found belong to the 57-year-old journalist and the 41-year-old indigenous activist who were carrying out an investigation into threats against the indigenous people.
The reporter, author of dozens of articles on the Amazon, was preparing a book on environmental conservation and Pereira was going as a guide through this remote region where drug traffickers, loggers and illegal fishermen operate. The Funai expert had received threats from criminal groups trying to invade the protected lands to exploit their resources.
According to the newspaper ‘O Globo’, hundreds of indigenous people have taken to the streets this Monday to demand justice for Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira in Atalaia do Norte.
Bolsonaro is pessimistic
The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, affirmed this Monday morning that “the indications lead us to believe that they committed some evil against them -the disappeared-. Human viscera were found floating in the river and have already been sent to Brasilia to carry out DNA tests,” the president reported in an interview with ‘Radio CBN Recife,’ a regional station of the Globo network in Brazil.
“I ask God to find them alive, but the indications lead to the opposite at the moment,” Bolsonaro stressed. Hours before these statements, the environmental journalist of the television network ‘Globo’, André Trigueiro and friend of Alessandra Sampaio, wife of Dom Phillips, had said that the British Embassy and the Federal Police informed the wife on Monday morning of the discovery of two bodies.
This information was denied by the Crisis Management Committee, created by the authorities to coordinate the searches. “The information that is being disclosed about the bodies of Mr. Bruno Pereira and Mr. Dom Phillips having been found is not appropriate,” reported the Committee, coordinated by the Federal Police (PF) and of which the Army, Navy and Police are part. Regional Secretariat of Public Security, with its police.
According to the newspaperThe Guardian’s assistant to the Brazilian ambassador broke the news to Phillips’ family in the UK during a phone call in which he pointed out that the bodies were “tied to a tree in the jungle”, but the local police deny the assistant’s comments.
Dominique Davies, Phillips’s niece, told AFP that “we know that they found two bodies, but we are awaiting confirmation from the Federal Police as to whether they are the bodies of Dom and Bruno.”
Given the confusion generated by the news, in a statement from the Crisis Management Committee it is reported that “according to what was already disclosed, biological materials were found that are being analyzed and the personal belongings of the disappeared. When they are found (people or the bodies), the family and the media will be immediately informed”.
On Sunday night, the Committee disclosed that the Amazon Firefighters had found a backpack with a laptop, Pereira’s medical identity document, books, a pair of pants and a pair of boots in the area where the search is being carried out. .
This is how the investigations are going for the disappearances
The material was found in a place near the house of Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, better known as ‘Pelado’, the only one detained in the case so far. Amarildo was put in jail last Friday after the authorities found traces of blood on one of his boats and for possession of weapons and drugs.
According to witnesses, related by AFP, Amarildo was seen passing by in a boat at high speed in the same direction as Phillips and Pereira shortly before his disappearance.
This case has sparked a wave of international solidarity and has once again sparked criticism against the far-right government Jair Bolsonaro, accused of encouraging invasions of indigenous lands and sacrificing the preservation of the Amazon for economic exploitation.
With AFP, EFE and local media
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