Search teams found personal items that belonged to Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and freelance British journalist Dom Phillips, who went missing in a remote area of Brazil’s Amazon a week ago, Federal Police said Sunday night.
Phillips’ backpack was discovered Sunday afternoon tied to a tree that was half-submerged, a firefighter told reporters in Atalaia do Norte, the closest city to the search area, which is near the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory. It is the end of the rainy season in the region and part of the forest is flooded.
“We used a little canoe to go to the shallow water. Then we found a tarp, shorts and a spoon,” said Binin Beshu Matis.On Saturday, police reported finding traces of blood in the boat of a fisherman who is under arrest as the only suspect and organic matter of apparent human origin inside the river. Both materials are under forensic analysis, and no more details were provided.
Authorities have said that a main line of the police investigation into the disappearance has pointed to an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in the Javari Valley reserve, which is Brazil’s second-largest Indigenous territory. The suspect denies any wrongdoing and said military police tortured him to try to get a confession, his family told The Associated Press..
AP had access to information police shared with Indigenous leadership. But while some police, the mayor and others in the region link the pair’s disappearances to the “fish mafia,” federal police have not ruled rule out other lines of investigation, such as narco trafficking. In 2019, Funai official Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was gunned down in Tabatinga in front of his wife and daughter-in-law. Three years later, the crime remains unsolved. His FUNAI colleagues told AP they believe the slaying was linked to his work against fishermen and poachers.
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