Pereira and Phillips

Crap news out of Brazil:

Brazilian police say a suspect has confessed to burying the bodies of missing British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira.

Detective Eduardo Fontes said the man, Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, took investigators to a site where human remains were dug up.

He said police would work with Interpol to confirm the bodies’ identities.

Mr Phillips, 57, and Mr Pereira, 41, disappeared in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest that is rife with illegal poaching, mining and logging on 5 June.

Univaja, the region’s indigenous association, was the first to alert authorities when the pair went missing.

The group expressed its “deep sadness” following the news conference.

It said of the men’s deaths: “Univaja understands their murder is a political crime, they were both human rights defenders and died doing work to look after us indigenous people from Vale do Javari.”

Human rights defenders and, as I understand it, Amazon defenders. The two are entangled. Indigenous people are a hindrance to the destructive exploitation of the Amazon, so defending them is also defending the Amazon.

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