ATALAYA NORTE, Brazil – Search teams have found a backpack, laptop and other personal belongings belonging to indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British freelance journalist Dom Phillips, who went missing in a remote area of Brazil’s federal Amazon police a week ago. on sunday night.
Phillips’ backpack was tied to a tree that was half submerged, a firefighter told reporters in Atalaia do Norte, the city closest to the search area, which is close to the local Javari Valley. The area is flooding season and part of the forest is flooded.
Federal police officers brought the items by boat to Atalaya to Norte later in the afternoon. In a statement a few hours later, they said they had identified the belongings of the two missing men, such as Pereira’s health card and clothes.
A tarpaulin from the boat used by the men was found on Saturday by volunteers from Matisse, a group of indigenous people they had recently contacted, one of them told the Associated Press.
“We used a little canoe to get to the shallow waters. Then we found a tarpaulin, shorts and a spoon, “said Binin Beshu Mathis.
Following this finding, search teams concentrated their efforts on the Itaquai River.
On Saturday, police said they found traces of blood in the boat of a fisherman who was arrested as the only suspected and organic substance of obvious human origin in the river. Both materials are under forensic analysis, and no more details have been provided.
THIS IS AN UPDATED NEWS. The previous history of the AP follows below.
ATALAYA DO NORTE, Brazil (AP) – Divers from a local Brazilian fire brigade found a backpack and laptop on Sunday in the remote Amazon region, where indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British freelance journalist Dom Phillips went missing a week ago.
The backpack was tied to a tree that was half submerged, an Amazonas firefighter told reporters in Atalaia do Norte, the city closest to the search area, which is close to the local Havari Valley. The area is flooding season and part of the forest is flooded.
Federal police officers brought the items by boat to Atalaya to Norte later in the afternoon.
The local indigenous association with which Pereira worked at the time of his disappearance confirmed that firefighters’ divers had found a backpack, but said he could not immediately say who it belonged to. There are only poor riparian communities in the area, where equipment such as laptops are rare.
Orlando Posuelo, a member of the Indigenous Association, known as UNIVAJA, told reporters that indigenous volunteers also found a tarpaulin that was in the boat used by the missing men and a T-shirt belonging to Pereira near the site. the backpack.
“Now the hope is to try to find at least some of the bodies,” he said.
Earlier, police found traces of blood in the boat of a fisherman who was arrested as the only suspected and organic substance of obvious human origin in the river. Officials said on Saturday that both materials were being analyzed and no further details were provided.
Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen on June 5 near the entrance to the indigenous territory bordering Peru and Colombia. They returned alone by boat on the Itaquai River to Atalaya do Norte, but never arrived.
Violent conflicts between fishermen, poachers and government agents are taking place in the area. Violence is on the rise as drug trafficking gangs struggle to control waterways to deliver cocaine, although Itaquai is not a known route for drug trafficking.
Authorities say the main line of the police investigation into the disappearance points to an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in the Havari Valley Reserve, Brazil’s second-largest local area.
One of the most valuable targets is the world’s largest freshwater fish with scales, arapaima. It weighs up to 200 kilograms (440 pounds) and can reach 3 meters (10 feet). The fish is sold in nearby cities, including Leticia, Colombia, Tabatinga, Brazil, and Iquitos, Peru.
The only known suspect in the disappearances is the fisherman Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, also known as Pelado, who has been arrested. According to locals who were with Pereira and Phillips, he brandished a rifle against them the day before the couple disappeared.
The suspect denies committing a crime and said military police tortured him to try to obtain a confession, his family told the Associated Press.
Pereira, who previously headed the local bureau of the government’s Indigenous Peoples Agency, known as FUNAI, is involved in several operations against illegal fishing. In such operations, fishing gear is generally seized or destroyed, and fishermen are fined and detained for a short time. Only indigenous peoples can legally fish in their territories.
“The motive for the crime is some kind of personal feud over the fisheries inspectorate,” Atalaya Mayor to Norte Denis Paiva speculated to reporters, without giving further details.
The AP had access to information that the police shared with the indigenous leadership. But while some police officers, the mayor and others in the region have linked the disappearances to the “fish mafia”, federal police do not rule out other lines of investigation, such as drug trafficking.
Fisherman Laurimar Alves Lopez, who lives on the shores of Itakuai, told the AP that he had given up fishing in the indigenous population after being detained three times. He said he had been beaten and starved in prison.
Lopez, who has five children, said he only fishes near his home to feed his family, not sell.
“I made a lot of mistakes, I stole a lot of fish. When you see your child starving, you go and get him where he needs to be. So I would go there to steal fish so I could support my family. But then I said: I will put an end to this, I will plant, “he said during an interview on his boat.
Lopez said he was taken to the local federal police headquarters in Tabatinga three times, beaten and left without food.
In 2019, Funai employee Maxiel Pereira dos Santos was shot dead in Tabatinga in front of his wife and daughter-in-law. Three years later, the crime remains unsolved. His FUNAI colleagues told the AP that they believe the killing is linked to his work against fishermen and poachers.
Rubber rubber founded all the communities on the river banks in the area. In the 1980s, however, the suction of rubber decreased and they resorted to logging. This also ended when the federal government established the local territory of the Jawari Valley in 2001. Since then, fishing has become a major economic activity.
Illegal fishing in the vast Havari Valley has been going on for about a month, said Manoel Felipe, a local historian and teacher who was also an adviser. A fisherman can earn at least $ 3,000 for each illegal intrusion.
“Fishermen’s financiers are Colombians,” Felipe said. “Everyone in Leticia was angry with Bruno. This is not a small game. It is possible that they sent an armed man to kill him.
Add Comment