British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian anthropologist Bruno Araujo Pereira, who left for an expedition, were seen for the last time on Sunday, in a region west of the Brazilian Amazon, on the border with Peru .
Le Monde with AFP
The authorities announced the discovery, Friday, June 10, of “apparently human organic matter” during research linked to the disappearance of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian anthropologist Bruno Pereira in a remote area of Amazonia Brazilian.
“Research teams have located in the river, near the port of Atalaia do Norte, of apparently human organic matter” which will be subject to expertise, said the federal police (PF) said in a press release (PF) , Voix of the research she conducts with the armed forces and local teams.
The PF did not say if the organic matter had been found in the place where firefighters investigated in traces of excavation, on the bank of the Itaquaí river, in the state of Amazonas, where made the two men when they disappeared.
a man placed in detention
“We were told about a mound of earth, as if there had been an excavation on the spot, as if we had buried something, and threw mud over it,” said the sub Lieutenant of Geonian Maciel firefighters to journalists. “We will probe at the bottom to see if we find something”.
“We cannot say that there is the slightest concrete trace, he continued, but we will see if we find something that could make a link with the two missing.”
After a very slow start, federal police and the Brazilian army intensified the research of the two men, who were seen for the last time Sunday morning in the locality of Sao Gabriel, not far from their destination, Atalaia Do Norte.
A 41 -year -old man, described as “suspect”, was placed in detention and traces of blood on his boat were to be analyzed. Witnesses said he had seen him pass at full speed in a boat in the same direction as Dom Phillips, regular contributor to The Guardian aged 57, and Bruno Pereira, expert in the 41 -year -old native peoples, before their disappearance.
The Brazilian government criticized
The two men traveled together in the Javari valley, a difficult area of access to the western Amazon, close to Peru where all kinds of traffickers circulate. The PF said on Wednesday that it did not exclude “no track”, including that of homicide, in a region considered to be “dangerous”. According to local native activists, Bruno Pereira was frequently threatened for his fight against encroachment on native land.
The government of the far -right president Jair Bolsonaro was criticized by the relatives of the missing and the indigenous groups for its delay in the deployment of research. “From the first moment, our armed forces and the federal police mobilized in the tireless research of these people,” defended himself, Friday, Mr. Bolsonaro in his speech at the top of the Americas in Los Angeles.
This declaration was taken just after that of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which had deemed “extremely slow” Brasilia’s response to disappearances and said he was concerned about the disappearance of these two people, as well as by attacks against activists and journalists in Brazil.
Jair Bolsonaro had previously qualified MM’s expedition. Phillips and Pereira of “Adventure”. “In this region, we are generally escorted,” he said on Thursday.