Photo: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Twitter

Bruno Araújo Pereira; Dom Phillips

Brazil’s president has said that a British journalist and an indigenous affairs expert who went missing more than a week ago in the Amazon rainforest are likely dead,CNNreports.

According to the outlet, Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro made the announcement on Monday, saying that he believes the pair were victims of “malice.”

Dom Phillips, a longtime contributor toThe Guardian, was last seen in the remote Javari Valley of the far western Amazonas State on June 5, alongside Bruno Araujo Pereira, a staffer on leave from the Brazilian Indigenous National Foundation (FUNAI),PEOPLE previously reported.

Amazon rainforest.Mark Fox Photography/ Getty

amazon rainforest

The pair were conducting research for a book, in an area of the Amazon that experts believe can be dangerous and known to harbor criminals and international drug dealers, per CNN.

On Sunday, Brazilian authorities said they reportedly found personal items belonging to the two men, in addition to “biological traces,” that are currently under analysis, according to multiple reports.

“The evidence leads us to believe that some malice was done to them, because human viscera has already been found floating in the river, which is already in Brasilia for DNA testing,” Bolsonaro confirmed during an interview Monday with CBN radio, adding that it’s unlikely men are alive.

JOAO LAET/AFP via Getty

Veteran foreign correspondent Dom Phillips visits in a mine in Roraima State, Brazil, on November 14, 2019. - Phillips went missing while researching a book in the Brazilian Amazon’s Javari Valley with respected indigenous expert Bruno Pereira. Pereira, an expert at Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, with deep knowledge of the region, has regularly received threats from loggers and miners trying to invade isolated indigenous groups' land. (Photo by Joao LAET / AFP) (Photo by JOAO LAET/AFP via Getty Images)

“The evidence points to the opposite at the moment,” Bolsonaro said.

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According to the Union of Indigenous Organizations of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA), Phillips and Pereira had previously “received threats in the field,” in the week before their disappearance, and “the threat was not the first.”

Last Wednesday, Amazonas state authorities announced the arrest of a male suspect, after they said blood was found in a boat he owned, in addition to “a lot of drugs” and ammunition for hunting.

source: people.com