The sister of the British journalist who has disappeared in a remote corner of the Amazon has urged the international community to pressure Brazil to do more to find a man whom she called “a bright star” whose work she illuminated the devastation of the largest tropical area in the world. tropical rainforest.
Dom Phillips, a longtime Guardian contributor, was last seen on Sunday morning while traveling by boat through the remote Javari region with a well-known indigenous expert named Bruno Araújo Pereira.
Days earlier, Pereira, who has spent years defending the region’s isolated tribes for Brazil’s indigenous protection agency, received a written threat from his opposition to illegal fishing bands plundering the Javari Rivers. . “We know who you are and we will find you to settle the matter,” he warned, according to the newspaper O Globo.
On Tuesday, 48 hours after the two men were last seen heading to the river town of Atalaia do Norte with a speedboat, Phillips’ sister said she was trying to stay positive despite the lack of news.
“Time is running out because we know there are situations where they could be hijacked, but there are also situations where they have had a mechanical failure and are stranded and have a shortage of supplies,” said Sian Phillips amid growing concern that authorities had not deployed sufficient resources.
Dom Phillips’ sister makes an emotional plea to help find a missing journalist on Amazon: video
“So this is crucial [Brazilian authorities] they are looking with all the equipment and knowledge and local resources the army has, “Phillips added from his home in Lancaster.
At the last minute on Monday, the Brazilian navy said seven of its officers were involved in the search, while the army said members of a jungle infantry division had been sent to the last place. known to men with a speedboat.
Earlier in the day, the army faced criticism after announcing that it had yet to be deployed because the defense ministry had not sent orders to the capital, Brasilia. Only on Tuesday morning, two days after the men disappeared, a helicopter is believed to have joined the mission.
Sian Phillips partner Paul Sherwood said: “We believe there is no clear answer to this and we want them to look as active as they can because that is the only hope we have.”
Pereira’s partner, Beatriz de Almeida Matos, told the Folha de São Paulo newspaper: “I have a three-year-old son and a two-year-old son. All I can think about right now is that it’s safe for the boys. “
In a letter to the Guardian, Brazil’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Fred Arruda, said he had contacted the federal police, army and navy and assured them that “they spared no effort in their search and rescue operation “.
The Brazilian Foreign Ministry expressed “great concern” over the disappearances and said federal police were doing everything possible to find the men as soon as possible. “Federal police have carried out repeated raids, with the support of the Navy,” he said on Tuesday. “If the disappearance turns out to be the result of criminal activity, all measures will be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice,” he added.
map
Sian Phillips calls on UK and US governments to pressure Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to meet with US counterpart Joe Biden at this week’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles , to do more.
“He will do nothing without putting pressure on him,” Phillips said of the Brazilian leader, whose presidency has overseen increased deforestation and dismantled environmental protection agencies and laws.
Bolsonaro has not yet publicly commented on the disappearances.
Photograph of a rainbow over the Brazilian Amazon sent by Dom Phillips to his sister Sian on June 1, four days before he and indigenous expert Bruno Araújo Pereira disappeared. Photography: Dom Phillips
In a letter to British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, environmental group Greenpeace urged her “to use all diplomatic channels to urgently communicate to the Brazilian government the importance of mobilizing all federal and local resources needed to find the partner.” missing “.
Friends and relatives of the late journalist, born in Bebington, near Liverpool, described him as an attentive and fearless journalist who saw it as his mission to expose the environmental crisis unfolding in the Amazon and look for possible solutions.
When he disappeared, Phillips was collecting material for a book on conservation, which he had also seen reported from Costa Rica.
“I wanted to … make it a popular book to alert everyone to the problems of the destruction of the Amazon,” his sister said, before adding: in this area, to highlight this area right now. “
He said he last heard from his brother last Wednesday as he was walking to the rainforest from his home in Salvador, where the journalist lives with his wife. “He sent us a picture of the Amazon with a rainbow over it from the plane,” he said.