Dom Phillips57, and a contributor to the British newspaper The Guardian, was conducting research for a book when he disappeared along with the expert Bruno Araujo Pereira in the Javari Valley, in the state of Amazonas (northern Brazil).
The Union of Indigenous Organizations of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA) and the Human Rights Observatory of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples (OPI) said in a statement that the men they had “received threats while on the ground”.
Pereira, an expert from Brazil’s government agency for indigenous affairs (FUNAI), with in-depth knowledge of the region, regularly received threats from illegal loggers and miners trying to invade the lands of isolated indigenous groups for exploitation.
“It may be an accident, they may have been executed“, indicated the president and added: “We hope and pray to God that they are found soon. The Armed Forces are working very hard in the region.”
The Federal Police (PF) and the Navy today resumed the search operations that began yesterday, the AFP news agency reported.
Earlier, the government had issued a note in which it expressed its “great concern” and assured that, if it were a criminal act, “it will take all measures to bring those responsible to justice.”
The indigenous region in the Amazon where the two men disappeared is the scene of increasing violence in recent times, due to the presence of illegal miners, hunters and fishermen.
The track of Phillips and Pereira, a deep connoisseur of the area, was lost when they were traveling from the community of Sao Rafael to the city of Atalaia do Norte, in the state of Amazonas, where they should have arrived on Sunday morning.
Source: Ambito

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