A British journalist and a Brazilian Indigenous expert have gone missing in one of the remotest corners of the Amazon rainforest just days after they received death threats.
Dom Phillips, a freelance foreign correspondent based in Brazil, was last seen over the weekend in the Javari region of Amazonas state. This area is vast and very remote, near the border with Peru, with the highest concentration of uncontactable people in the world.
Philips was travelling and working with Bruno Araújo Pereira, a former government official and veteran indigenous advocate, who often receives threats from the loggers, fishermen and miners seeking to invade their lands.
The pair were travelling between the Ribeirinha São Rafael community to the city, from North Watchtower, GLOBO newspaper reports as confirmed by the Union of Indigenous Peoples of Vale do Javari (Univaja).
Reports say they were travelling on a new boat, which has a 40 HP engine and enough fuel for the trip, plus seven empty drums of fuel.
Phillips, originally from Merseyside in the UK, moved to Brazil in 2007 and is based in the city of Salvador where he reports for The Guardian and other publications, including the Financial Times and New York Times.
On Monday local Indigenous leaders became concerned after the two men became untraceable during a reporting trip around the town of Atalaia do Norte, the entry point into the Javari reserve.
According to Univaja leaders, the two were travelling with the aim of visiting the Indigenous Surveillance team located near the town called Lago do Jaburu, on the Ituí River, to interview the indigenous people.
A statement from Univaja said Phillips and Pereira set off last week and they reached their destination on Friday evening.
At about 6 am on Sunday they commenced the return journey to Atalaia do Norte. On the way back they stopped at the São Rafael community, on a previously scheduled visit, so that Pereira could hold a meeting with the community nicknamed 'Barbecue.'
The journey should have taken around three hours but a search party was sent out after they were not seen nine hours later.
Bruno Pereira is considered one of the most experienced indigenists, with a deep knowledge of the region and great respect from indigenous peoples.
The Univaja statement said the two men had received threats in the days before their disappearance, but no more specific details were given.
The Guardian is urgently seeking information about Phillips’ whereabouts and is in contact with the British embassy in Brazil and local and national authorities.
