Personal belongings belonging to 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 items were discovered on Saturday thanks to a small but determined indigenous search team that spent the last seven days on the front line hunting for the two missing men, both of whom supported the indigenous cause in various ways.
On Saturday morning, a handful of volunteer volunteers from Matisse’s local group came across items they suspected could be items belonging to the missing men.
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A Matis volunteer said they decided to enter a secluded spot by the Itaquaí River after hearing something they thought sounded like someone hitting an aluminum canoe.
“They felt it, imagined it and started rowing [their canoes]”Said Binin Mathis. “Indigenous people can feel these things as a spirit. [It was like] a forest spirit that says, “There’s an object inside.” That’s what the indigenous people think. “
A large group of indigenous volunteers – accompanied by members of the Brazilian military police and a Guardian reporter who was recruited to the Indigenous Search Teams – returned to the site shortly after 16:00 and found a series of objects floating in the murky brown waters of the area.
Phillips and Bruno Pereira House Photo: Composite of the Guardian / Gary Carlton
After noticing a blue tarpaulin that was tied to a tree and recognized as belonging to the local Hawari association, searchers found a piece of clothing that activists acknowledged belonged to Bruno.
“They belong to Bruno! They belong to Bruno! ” The searchers shouted as they examined the object.
Minutes later, a pair of dark trousers – which people who knew Pereira also recognized as his – emerged from the water before disappearing from view.
Federal police officers were called in and, after arriving Sunday morning, closed the narrow waterway leading to the area and sent a team of detectives.
Forensic scientists entered the flooded forest in small boats and confirmed the find.
A statement from federal police on Sunday night said the items found included a pair of pants, a pair of boots and a health card belonging to Pereira, and a backpack full of clothes and a pair of boots belonging to Phillips.
A firefighter is holding a phone with a photo showing the moment when a backpack was found during the search for indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips. Photo: Edmar Baros / AP
Experts and local witnesses said the breakthrough would not have been possible without the efforts and in-depth knowledge of indigenous search teams searching the jungles and rivers of the Jawari region for traces 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 reporting trip when they disappeared early last Sunday.
“Without their knowledge and without them, we would never have found any of this,” said Fabricio Ferreira Amorim, an indigenous advocate who helps coordinate the search mission.
Phillips, a longtime Guardian contributor, was in the Hawari region – home to the world’s largest concentration of unrelated tribes – as part of reports for an environmental book.
On Saturday, his Brazilian mother-in-law admitted that she no longer believes the two men will return home.
“They are no longer with us,” she wrote on social media. “Their souls have joined those of so many others who have given their lives in defense of tropical forests and indigenous peoples.”
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