Elizeu Mayaruna, who works for the indigenous agency Funai, told Reuters that while searching the forest along the Itacoai River on Saturday, he found clothes, a tarp and a bottle of motor oil.
Mayaruna and two other members of an indigenous search party who knew Pereira, a former Funai official, said they recognized a shirt and pants that belonged to him.
Witnesses said they saw Pereira and Phillips, a freelance reporter who writes for the Guardian and the Washington Post, go down that river last Sunday.
The two men were on a reporting trip to the remote jungle area near the border with Peru and Colombia, home to the world’s largest number of uncontacted indigenous people. This wild and lawless region has attracted gangs of cocane smugglers, as well as loggers, miners and illegal hunters.
News of the couple’s disappearance has had a global impact, with Brazilian icons from football great Pel to singer Caetano Veloso joining politicians, environmentalists and human rights activists in urging President Jair Bolsonaro to step up research.
Reuters witnesses saw the part of the shore where Mayaruna discovered the clothes buckled by police on Sunday morning as investigators searched the area, with half a dozen boats carrying police, soldiers and firefighters in both meaning.
The divers also discovered a large black Equinox-branded backpack on Sunday afternoon containing books, a laptop and clothing, according to a report by the O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, citing a spokesperson for the fire department. state of Amazonas.
The state fire department press office and federal police did not immediately respond to questions about the discovery of a backpack and clothing linked to the missing men.
State police inspectors involved in the investigation told Reuters they were focusing on poachers and illegal fishers in the area, who often clashed with Pereira as he organized indigenous patrols in the local reserve. .
Police have arrested a fisherman, Amarildo da Costa, known as “Pelado”, on a weapons charge and are holding him while they investigate whether he was involved in the men’s disappearance.
Lawyers and Costa’s family said he was fishing the river legally and denied he had any role in the men’s disappearance.
Some 150 troops were deployed via riverboats to search for the missing men and interview the local population, joining indigenous search parties who have been searching for the two men for a week.
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