Who is Dom Phillips? Search for missing journalist intensifies as family urges officials to take action

Dom Phillips, a veteran British journalist, and Bruno Araújo Pereira, an Indigenous affairs official, are missing somewhere in the remote Javari Valley, a part of Brazil's Amazon area. The duo is said to have been missing for over 24 hours now.

The Union of Indigenous Organizations of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA) stated that the two men were last located in the São Rafael community on Sunday (June 5) morning, as per satellite information. Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were returning by boat from the Vale do Javari and heading to the city of Atalaia do Norte, but they never showed up.

Search efforts to find the two have since intensified, authorities stated. Meanwhile, UNIVAJA, the organization for which Pereira worked as an adviser, stated that both men had received death threats before their disappearance.

The two had planned to take a two-hour trip to Atalaia do Norte, but two rescue teams were deployed on Sunday, June 5, to look for them after they never reached their destination.

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Dom Phillips and Bruno Araújo Pereira: Traveling to a point of no return?

The pair was last located in Vale do Javari in Amazon (Image via Alessandro Rodrigues/Twitter)

Dom Phillips, 57, is a seasoned journalist who has been associated with the British newspaper The Guardian for a long time. On the other hand, Bruno Araújo Pereira is one of the Brazilian Indigenous National Foundation's (FUNAI) most experienced employees, handling operations in the Vale do Javari area. He was responsible for looking after FUNAI's regional office and the coordination of isolated Indigenous groups before he went on leave. Pereira usually carries a gun, following repeated threats from illegal fishermen and poachers in the area.

Last Saturday, June 4, while the duo were camped out, a couple of men traveled by river to the Indigenous territory's boundary and wielded a weapon at a UNIJAVA patrol, as told by the organization's president Paulo Marubo to The Associated Press.

The place where Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were last located happens to be an important access route to and from the Vale do Javari, Brazil's second-largest Indigenous territory. It is home to numerous Indigenous peoples, and the valley is covered with rivers and dense forests that allow it very little access to the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, Brazil's federal public prosecutors released a statement on Monday, June 6, in which they stated that they had launched an investigation into the matter. They also specified that the Federal Police, Amazonas State's Civil Police, National Guard, Army and Navy were part of the investigation. The Navy is said to be coordinating the search and they have confirmed the deployment of a search-and-rescue team of seven members.

Dom Phillips currently resides in Salvador, a city in Brazil's Bahia state, with his wife, Alessandra Sampaio, who tweeted her concerns about Phillips' situation.

"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. I know, however, the moment the Amazon is going through and I know the risks that Dom always denounced."

This remote area of Vale do Javari has always been in the middle of scuffles between hunters, fishermen and official security agents. The route is also used to smuggle c*caine produced in Peruvian territory that gets supplied to nearby cities or Europe.

Maria Laura Canineau, director of Human Rights Watch in Brazil, said in a statement:

"It is extremely important that Brazilian authorities dedicate all available and necessary resources to the immediate realization of searches in order to guarantee, as soon as possible, the safety of the two men."

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Earlier reports revealed how dangerous those remote parts of Amazon could be, with journalists working for regional media outlets getting killed in recent years. However, there have been no such cases among journalists from national media or foreign media. Having said that, access to the press in these places has always been limited due to the high volume of criminal activities recorded there.

In September 2019, an employee of the FUNAI was shot dead in Tabatinga. Britain's Emma Kelty was killed while attempting to kayak the length of the Amazon in 2017. The 43-year-old vanished after she wrote on social media about her fear of being robbed or murdered in a remote Brazilian jungle ruled by drug traffickers and pirates.

Over the years, press organizations have also expressed concern regarding the dangers of reporting on illegal mining operations in the region.