The Guardian reported on Monday that search crews discovered two deaths in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest while seeking a British reporter and a Brazilian indigenous specialist, citing a family of the journalist briefed by a Brazilian ambassador.
Brazilian police announced on Sunday that the possessions of freelance writer Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, a former employee at the federal indigenous agency Funai, had been discovered in a creek near the river where they had been last seen on June 5.
According to the Guardian, to which Phillips frequently contributed, Brazil’s ambassador in London notified Phillips’ brother-in-law Paul Sherwood that officials were seeking to identify the two victims found tied to a tree near the river.
The two men were on a reporting mission in a remote jungle area along the Peru-Colombia border, which is home to the world’s biggest population of uncontested indigenous people. Cocaine smuggling groups, as well as illegal loggers, miners, and hunters, have been drawn to the wild and desolate terrain.
According to G1, a Brazilian news website, search crews discovered their remains on Monday, citing the journalist’s Brazilian wife. The article was quickly revised, however, to reflect the fact that the remains had not yet been identified.
The rumors that the remains had been discovered were false, federal police stated on Monday. According to the authorities, only the biological material and personal possessions of the missing males have been discovered thus far.
On Monday, more than 100 indigenous people marched in the riverfront town of Atalaia do Norte, near where the bodies were discovered, demanding better treatment of native peoples and justice for the two men.
The couple’s disappearance made headlines throughout the world, and environmentalists and human rights organizations pushed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to intensify the search.
Bolsonaro, who was grilled by Phillips at a press conference last year on Brazil’s weak environmental enforcement, said last week that the two men “went on an adventure that is not encouraged” and that they could have been executed.
Poachers and illegal fishermen in the area, according to state police officers participating in the inquiry, battled frequently with Pereira as he organized indigenous patrols of the local reservation.
Amarildo da Costa, also known as “Pelado,” was detained on a firearms accusation and is being held in custody as police examine the case. Costa’s attorneys and family have maintained that he fished legally on the river and that he had no involvement in the men’s abduction.
