Fears are growing for the fate of a British journalist and author who moved from Bristol to Brazil and has now gone missing in a remote part of the Amazon.
Dom Phillips, who has been a regular contributor to The Guardian and used to live in Bristol, was last seen with Government official Bruno Araujo Pereira on Sunday in the Sao Rafael community.
The pair had been due to return by boat from the Vale do Javari, but have not been seen since Sunday, June 5.
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Mr Pereira works for the Brazilian Indigenous Affairs Agency, supporting people living in remote parts of the rainforest - and had previously been a target of illegal fishermen and poachers.
Mr Phillips, who moved to Salvador more than ten years ago and is a published author as well as writing for The Guardian, Financial Times, Washington Post and the New York Times, used to live in Bristol and has tweeted on social media about his time in the city.
According to reports in Brazil, he had been accompanying Mr Pereira in his work to meet remote and isolated indigenous groups last week, but the pair have not returned as planned.
In a series of messages on Twitter, through a friend, Mr Phillips’ wife Alessandra Sampaio, shared her fears for her husband. "I can only pray that Dom and Bruno are well, somewhere, prevented from continuing on for some mechanical reason, and that all of this becomes just one more story in a life replete with them," Ms Sampaio wrote.
"I know, however, the moment the Amazon is going through and I know the risks that Dom always denounced,” she added.
Mr Pereira’s boss, Paulo Marubo, said the pair had been on a two-day trip to the Jaburu Lake region, and had been threatened on that trip already.
Mr Phillips has been working on a book about the preservation of the Amazon, and received a year-long fellowship for environmental reporting that ran until January from the Alicia Patterson Foundation.
The region in which he has gone missing is a notorious corridor for illegal drug trafficking from Peru, as well as being something of a battleground between Government authorities and illegal mining and foresting businesses.
"He is a cautious journalist, with impressive knowledge of the complexities of the Brazilian environmental crisis," Margaret Engel, the Alicia Patterson Foundation's executive director, wrote in an email. "And he is a beautiful writer and a lovely person. The best of our business."
Speaking to The Guardian, his sister Sian Phillips said: “My brother Dom has been living in Brazil with his Brazilian wife. He loves the country and cares deeply about the Amazon and the people there.
“We knew it was a dangerous place, but Dom really believed it’s possible to safeguard the nature and livelihood of the indigenous people.
“He is a talented journalist and was researching a book when he disappeared yesterday. We’re really worried about him and urge the authorities in Brazil to do all they can.”
Ms Phillips urged authorities to “search the routes he was following” and added: “If anyone can help scale up resources available for the search, that would be great, because time is crucial.
“Here in the UK, my other brother and I are desperately worried. We love him and want him and his Brazilian guide Bruno Pereira found. Every minute counts.”
Univaja said the two had been threatened during their reporting trip, and Mr Pereira regularly carried a gun due to receiving threats from illegal fishermen and poachers, according to the Associated Press.
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