Personal belongings of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira have been found in a flooded forest area near the Amazon River where they were last seen.
The objects were discovered on Saturday thanks to a small but determined indigenous research team that has spent the last seven days on the front lines of the hunt for the two missing men who had defended, in different ways, the indigenous cause.
On Saturday morning, a handful of volunteer searchers from the Matis indigenous group came across what they suspected could be items from the missing men.
.
A Matis volunteer said they had decided to enter a secluded spot on the Itaquai River after hearing what they thought sounded like someone hitting an aluminum canoe.
“It simply came to our notice then [their canoes]Said Binin Matis. “Indigenous peoples can feel these things, like a spirit. [It was like] a forest spirit saying, “There’s an object in there.” That’s the way the natives think. “
A larger group of indigenous volunteers, accompanied by members of the Brazilian military police and a Guardian journalist who has been integrated with indigenous research teams, returned to the scene shortly after 4 p.m. and found a number of objects floating in the murky brown waters of the area. .
Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira Photography: Guardian Composite / Gary Carlton
After seeing a blue canvas that had been tied to a tree and was recognized as belonging to the Javari Indigenous Association, searchers found a piece of clothing that activists acknowledged belonged to Bruno.
“They are from Bruno! They belong to Bruno! ” the searchers shouted as they examined the object.
Minutes later, dark trousers – which Pereira’s acquaintances also recognized as their headquarters – came out of the water before disappearing from view.
Federal police officers were summoned and, after arriving on Sunday morning, closed the narrow waterway leading to the area and deployed a team of forensic officers.
Forensic officers entered the flooded forest in small boats and confirmed the finding.
On Sunday evening, a statement from the federal police said the recovered items included a pair of pants, a pair of boots and a Pereira health card and a backpack full of clothes and a pair of Phillips boots.
A firefighter is holding a phone with a picture showing when a backpack was found during the search for Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips. Photography: Edmar Barros / AP
Indigenous experts and witnesses said the advance would have been impossible without the efforts and deep local knowledge of indigenous search teams who have been scouring the jungles and rivers of the Javari region in search of any trace of the two men.
“They are the Jungle Justice League,” said a military police officer involved in the search for the two men, who were returning from a four-day report trip when they disappeared in the early hours of last Sunday.
“Without their knowledge, and without them, we would never have found any of this,” said Fabrício Ferreira Amorim, an indigenous advocate who helps coordinate the search mission.
Phillips, a longtime Guardian contributor, had been in the Javari region, home to the largest concentration of uncontacted tribes in the world, as part of the report he was conducting for a book on the environment.
On Saturday, her Brazilian mother-in-law admitted that she no longer believed the two men would return home.
“They are no longer with us,” he wrote on social media. “Their souls have joined those of so many others who gave their lives in defense of the rainforest and indigenous peoples.”