Threatened, a British journalist and expert on indigenous peoples disappears in the Amazon

A British journalist and a Brazilian indigenous peoples expert went missing deep in the Amazon rainforest after the expert’s organization said it received threats for its work on illegal monitoring of mining and fishing In the area.

Dom Phillipsa freelance writer for The Guardian, e Bruno Araujo Pereira They were last seen early Sunday as they traveled by boat on the Itaquaí River in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas near the border with Peru.

Look for groups made up of local indigenous people they found no trace of the men or their boat. On Monday evening, the Brazilian navy said it had sent a research team in the area and the Brazilian military said it intended to do so.

Phillips, 57, was in this remote region to interview the natives who patrolled the area in search of illegal miners and fishermen with an organization called Univaja. Phillips planned to use the reports for a book on the Amazon, according to The Guardian.

He was traveling with Pereira, who had worked with the Univaja patrol teams. those teams he had recently faced threats in the area for their work, also last week, Univaja said in a press release. The organization added that it had reported some of the threats to local authorities.

leonardo leninan official from the Observatory of Human Rights of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples, another indigenous advocacy group working with Univaja, said Pereira was well known in the region because for years he had led the Brazilian government’s efforts to protect the indigenous tribes there.

Death threats

In response to his work, Pereira had long since received death threats, Lenin said. “Bruno has always acted fiercely against illegal activities in the region,” he said. “They were trying to intimidate him stop monitoring the territory“.

For decades, the Amazon has been riddled with violence between people who want to exploit the rainforest for profit and those who try to stop them.

Amazonas, where Phillips and Pereira have disappeared, has experienced an increase in deforestation in recent years and is part of the group the most violent areas of the jungle. Men were last seen near border area with Colombia and Peru which is common for drug trafficking.

In a statement, Phillips’ wife, Alessandra Sampaio, called on Brazilian authorities to step up their efforts to find the missing men. “In the jungle, Every second counts; every second can be life or death, ”he said. “Brazilian authorities, our families are desperate. Respond to the urgency of the moment with urgent action “.

Brazilian journalists and indigenous activists criticized the authorities’ search efforts Monday night, also because it appeared that a helicopter had not yet been used, which could be crucial to finding the men on board such a vast and remote area.

The military also initially stated Monday evening that it had not received authorization to send a search team, before announcing it would do so shortly after 7:30 p.m. local time.

“A crucial day has passed and the Brazilian authorities have not provided any helicopters to try to find Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips,” Eliane Brum, a prominent Brazilian journalist and author, said on Twitter.

The navy said it would use a helicopter to search for him on Tuesday. A spokesman told the army it only had motorboats in the area and that it would take some time to take a helicopter from about 700 miles away to Manaus, the capital of the Amazon.

Data from a satellite communications device showed that Phillips and Pereira they had stopped along the Itaquaí River for a meeting scheduled for 6 on Sunday, Univaja said. They were last seen on their boat down the river from that location. They should have reached the town of North Watchtower at 8 t they didn’t.

The area is a labyrinth of waterways, and it can be easy to get lost there, even if Univaja has noticed that Pereira “has deep knowledge of the area“. The men were traveling in a new boat with a 40-horsepower engine and 70 liters of fuel, enough for the trip, Univaja said.

Phillips has lived in Brazil since 2007 and works as a reporter for various newspapers, including the New York Timesfor which he wrote about two dozen notes in 2017.

In recent years it has been regular contributor to The Guardian. Throughout the 1990s she wrote and edited for Mixmag, a British electronic dance music magazine, where she coined the term “progressive house” to describe a musical genre, According to the magazine.

In a second act of his career, Phillips fell in love with Braziland in particular the reports on the isolated regions of the Amazon and on the conflict that exists there.

“It’s a boy immensely curious who is fascinated by the details and what drives everything that happens in the Amazon, “said Tom Phillips, Latin America correspondent for the Guardian.

“He also has a big heart and is a person who really likes people, and that kindness and decency are what drives him.”

c.2022 The New York Times Company

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