By James Simons-
Personal items belonging to the British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira have been found in an area of a flooded forest near the Amazonian river on which they were last seen, as his wife also confirmed his body has also bee discovered.
The belongings were discovered on Saturday by a small Indigenous search team that has spent the past seven days on the frontline of the hunt for the two missing men who had both, in different ways, championed the Indigenous cause.
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The backpack, which was identified as belonging to freelance journalist Dom Phillips (pictured) from the Uk, was found tied to a tree that was half-submerged, a firefighter told reporters in Atalaia do Norte.
Cops have already found traces of blood in the boat of a fisherman, Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, also known as Pelado, who has been arrested and is the only suspect so far.
Mr da Costa de Oliveira pulled a rifle on Mr Phillips and Mr Pereira the day before they disappeared, according to indigenous people who were with them.
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On Saturday morning, a handful of volunteer searchers from the Matis Indigenous group came across what they suspected could be items belonging to the missing men.
One Matis volunteer decided to enter the secluded location off the River Itaquaí after hearing what they thought sounded like somebody banging on an aluminium canoe.
“They felt it, they imagined it and they went in paddling [their canoes],” said Binin Matis. “Indigenous people can feel these things, like a spirit. [It was like] a forest spirit saying, ‘There is some object in there.’ This is how Indigenous people think.”
The mother-in-law of Dom Phillips embraces a girl during a protest after his disappearance.
Hope of finding Dom Phillips alive has gone, say mother-in-law and wife.
Search teams that found the laptop and other items Sunday had concentrated their efforts around a spot in the Itaquai river where a tarp from the boat used by the missing men was found Saturday by volunteers from the Matis Indigenous group.
“We used a little canoe to go to the shallow water. Then we found a tarp, shorts and a spoon,” one of the volunteers, Binin Beshu Matis, told The Associated Press.
Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen June 5 near the entrance of the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, which borders Peru and Colombia. They were returning alone by boat on the Itaquai to Atalaia do Norte but never arrived.
That area has seen violent conflicts between fishermen, poachers and government agents. Violence has grown as drug trafficking gangs battle for control of waterways to ship cocaine, although the Itaquai is not a known drug trafficking route.
Authorities have said a main line of the police investigation into the disappearance has pointed to an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in the Javari Valley reserve, which is Brazil’s second-largest Indigenous territory.
A larger group of Indigenous volunteers – accompanied by members of Brazil’s military police force and a Guardian reporter who has been embedded with the Indigenous search teams – returned to the location at just after 4pm and found a series of items floating in the area’s murky brown waters.
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