Brazil Finds Bruno's Backpack With British Journalist Lost In Amazon During Isolated Community Coverage

Relatives and friends of British journalist Dom Phillips' wife hold up posters during a protest against the disappearance of Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Araujo Pereira in the Amazon (ANTARA/Reuters/Pilar Olivares/as)

JAKARTA - A search team on Sunday 12 June found a backpack belonging to a Brazilian indigenous expert, Bruno Pereira, who went missing with British journalist Dom Phillips in the Amazon rainforest.

Firefighters Lt. Barbosa Amorim said the backpack, branded Equinox, contained clothes, a laptop and other personal items.

The backpack was found tied to a submerged tree trunk at the location where the two men were last seen.

Amorim said he did not know whether the backpack belonged to Pereira or Phillips.

Earlier, Elizeu Mayaruna, who works for the Funai indigenous community, said she found clothes, tarpaulins and bottles of lubricant while searching along the Itacoai river in the forest on Saturday.

Mayaruna and two other searchers who knew Pereira said they recognized the shirt and pants as belonging to Pereira, a former Funai administrator.

Witnesses said they saw Pereira and Phillips, freelance journalists who have covered for the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers, walking down the river the previous Sunday.

The two men were reporting in a remote wilderness area near the borders with Peru and Colombia, which is home to the world's largest isolated indigenous community.

This lawless wild area is often visited by gangs of cocaine smugglers, illegal loggers, miners and hunters.

The news of the disappearance of the two people invited a global reaction. Brazilian football legend Pele and singer Caetano Veloso joined politicians and human rights activists, urging President Jair Bolsonaro to step up search efforts.

Several eyewitnesses saw a stretch of the riverbank where clothes were found covered up by police early Sunday as investigators searched the area.

Several boats were seen going back and forth carrying police, soldiers and firefighters.

The fire service and federal police have not yet responded to inquiries about the backpacks and clothes found linked to the two missing men.

State police detectives involved in the investigation said they were focusing on poachers and illegal fishermen because they frequently clashed with Pereira, who organizes patrols of indigenous people in the reservation.

Police have arrested a fisherman named Amarildo da Costa, known as "Pelado", for carrying a gun.

He is being held for investigation into his involvement in the disappearance of the two men.

Costa's lawyers and family previously said he was fishing legally in the river and denied any involvement in the case.

About 150 soldiers have been deployed in motorboats to search for Pereira and Phillips, and to question natives. They joined a local team who had been searching for them for a week.