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Amazon: Police find items of missing journalist and expert

June 13, 2022

Brazilian rescue teams have found a backpack and clothes belonging to British journalist Dom Phillips and tribal expert Bruno Pereira respectively. Their mission to find the missing men continues.

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Federal police officers arrive at the pier with items found during a search for Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and freelance British journalist Dom Phillips in Atalaia do Norte, Amazonas state, Brazil, Sunday, June 12, 2022.
Police arrive with items belonging to the missing men after the search mission SundayImage: Edmar Barros/AP Photo/picture alliance

Brazilian police on Sunday said they found items belonging to a British journalist and an Indigenous expert who went missing a week ago in the Amazon rainforest.

Rescue teams, along with volunteers of Indigenous peoples from the Javari valley, where the men went missing, found clothes that belonged to journalist Dom Philipps and tribal expert Bruno Pereira.

"A health card, black pants, a black sandal and a pair of boots belonging to Bruno Pereira" was found Sunday, federal police said in a statement Sunday.

"A pair of boots and a backpack belonging to Dom Phillips containing personal clothing" was also found, police said. The backpack contained his laptop.

Police added that rescue teams covered about 25 square kilometers (10 square miles) with "thorough searches through the jungle, roads in the region and flooded vegetation."

What else do we know?

Dozens of volunteers from various Indigenous communities had stepped up efforts to find Phillips and Pereira after two Indigenous rights groups sounded the alarm about their disappearance last week.

A member from the Matis Indigenous community told the Associated Press news agency they discovered a tarp on Saturday that was used on the boat the two men last traveled in.

The two experts were traveling by boat last week down the Itaquai river to the town of Atalaia do Norte but they never reached the town.

This region, the Javari Valley, is near the border with Peru, and is home to the most uncontacted Indigenous people in the world. It is also prone to violent conflicts between fishermen and others.

Rescue teams then concentrated their search in the area along the river. Philipps' backpack, for example, was found tied to a tree, a firefighter told reporters in Atalaia do Norte.

Phillips, 57, and Pereira, 41, were last seen on June 5. Even though police have arrested a suspect, a fisherman in the area on whose boat they found traces of blood, details of the investigation is not yet known. 

rm/aw (AFP, AP, LUSA, EFE)