Concern was mounting on Tuesday, two days after a British journalist and a Brazilian expert on indigenous peoples disappeared in a remote region of the Amazon during an expedition described as an “unsavory adventure” by President Jair Bolsonaro.
Freelance journalist Dom Phillips, 57, regular contributor to the daily The Guardianwho was researching for a book in the Javari Valley, and Bruno Araujo Pereira, 41, a recognized specialist in indigenous peoples, have not been seen since Sunday morning.
They had “received threats on the ground the week [précédant] their disappearance”, revealed in a press release the Union of Indigenous Organizations of the Javari Valley (Univaja) and the Observatory for the Human Rights of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples (OPI).
The Federal Police and the Navy resumed their search on Tuesday morning, the latter with a helicopter, two boats and a water scooter, the press reported. The Brasilia government, saying it was “very concerned” in a statement, assured that the police were doing everything “to locate them as soon as possible”.
Located in the west of the Amazon, near Peru, the Javari Valley is very difficult to access and is home to tribes that are often totally isolated. This region is experiencing an escalation of armed violence due to the presence of miners, artisanal gold miners or clandestine hunters.
“Two people in a boat, in a region like this, completely wild, is an adventure that is not to be recommended. Anything can happen,” the Brazilian president said in an interview with Sbt News.
“It may be an accident, they may have been executed”, continued President Bolsonaro who “prays God that they are found as soon as possible”. “The armed forces are working hard in the region,” he said.
“Every minute counts”
According to Univaja and OPI, the two men left Atalaia do Norte, in the state of Amazonas, to interview residents around a base of Funai – the government body in charge of indigenous peoples -, and reached Lake Jaburu on Friday evening.
They then headed back on Sunday morning, but did not return to Atalaia do Norte as planned.
They stopped in the community of Sao Rafael, where Bruno Pereira had scheduled a meeting with the local chief to discuss the issue of indigenous patrols to combat the increasingly frequent “invasions” of land under the government of Jair Bolsonaro.
The local chief not arriving, they decided to return to Atalaia do Norte, two hours away by boat. They were last seen just downstream of Sao Rafael.
Federal police confirmed to Agence France-Presse that the last two men to have seen Phillips and Pereira were questioned on Monday evening and then released.
“Every minute counts […] we call on the Brazilian authorities to do everything possible,” the journalist’s sister, Sian Phillips, implored in a video posted on social media from the United Kingdom, struggling to hold back her tears.
“We knew it was a dangerous place, but Dom believed it was possible to preserve nature and the lives of indigenous people,” she added.
The journalist’s Brazilian wife, Alessandra Sampaio, living with him in Salvador (north-east), asked in a poignant video broadcast by TV Bahia for “an intensification of the search”.
Pereira’s family said for their part that “time is crucial […] especially if they are injured”.
About forty journalists and friends of Phillips, who also worked on the washington postto New York Timesat The Interceptsaid in a letter published by O Globo refuse to “consider the worst” and also called for an acceleration of the research.
The Javari Valley is one of the largest indigenous territories in Brazil. It is home to some 6,300 people from 26 ethnic groups, 19 of whom are isolated, according to the NGO Instituto Socioambiental.
Bruno Araujo Pereira, a connoisseur of the region and who worked for Funai for a long time, has regularly been the subject of threats, including death, from illegal loggers and miners coveting indigenous lands.
Funai’s base in Javari Valley has been attacked several times in recent years. In 2019, a Funai representative was shot dead there.