The Fire Department found this Sunday a backpack with a laptop and other objects in the area where searches are being carried out for a British journalist and a Brazilian indigenist who have been missing for a week in the Amazon jungle.
British journalist Dom Phillips, a contributor to the daily Guardianand the Brazilian indigenist Bruno Pereira have been missing since Sunday, June 5, in the Valle do Javari, a remote and jungle region in the Brazilian Amazon near the borders with Peru and Colombia, where they were conducting an investigation into threats against indigenous people.
According to the information provided by the Fire Department, the backpack – which also contained books and some clothing – belongs to one of the disappeared, according to confirmations from representatives of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (Univaja). ).
The backpack, which will be sent to the experts for analysis, was tied to a tree in a flooded area on the riverbank, in a place near the house of Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, better known as “Pelado.”
So far, “Pelado” is the only suspect in the disappearances and was arrested on Friday after the authorities found traces of blood in one of his boats.
They ask Bolsonaro to redouble his efforts to find the disappeared
After a week of searches and few results, non-governmental organizations and international organizations such as the UN Human Rights Office and the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have raised their voices to urge the Jair Bolsonaro government to “redouble” its efforts. to find the missing.
The Valle do Javari, the second largest indigenous reserve in Brazil, is known for being a scene of conflicts dominated by drug trafficking, timber theft and illegal mining.
Araújo, who has been working in that region for years and knows the area intimately, had been the target of various threats from mafias of illegal miners, loggers and even drug traffickers operating in the region, which has raised fears of a murder among his relatives.
Phillips, for his part, is a veteran journalist based in Brazil for 15 years and who has collaborated with various international media, such as the Financial Times, New York Times and the Washington Postamong others, and is currently working on research for a book on Valle do Javari.
The track of Phillips and Araújo was lost on June 5 when they were traveling from the community of Sao Rafael to the city of Atalaia do Norte, in the state of Amazonas, where they should have arrived on the morning of that Sunday.
They were traveling in a new boat, with 70 liters of gasoline, enough for the trip, and were last seen near the community of Sao Gabriel, a few kilometers from Sao Rafael.
