@guardian

"Now we can bring them home and say goodbye with love." Police in the Brazilian Amazon have found the bodies of two men in the area close to where British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira went missing 10 days ago. The announcement brought a sad end to a long search which has horrified the nation and underlined the growing dangers faced by those who dare to defend Brazil’s environment and Indigenous communities, whose rights have been increasingly under attack under the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. Phillips and Pereira set off into the forest on 2 June for what was supposed to be a short trip. But by Sunday 5 June, they had not returned. It was supposed to be one of Phillips’s last trips to the Amazon, the kicker for a book that would reveal all the lush complexity of the world’s largest rainforest. Instead, it seems to have been a final chapter for Phillips, who was a frequent contributor to the Guardian, and his friend Pereira, a guide and expert on Indigenous people. Phillips, a 57-year-old journalist from Merseyside in the UK, and Pereira, a 41-year-old father of two from Brazil’s north-east, bonded over a shared love of the Amazon. For almost two years they travelled together, with Pereira accompanying Phillips on his reporting trips. Phillips was writing a book about sustainable development in the rainforest and the younger man was an eager companion. Pereira believed in the project and opened doors to the jungle and its people. In a statement, Phillips’s wife, Alessandra Sampaio, said: “Although we are still awaiting definitive confirmations, this tragic outcome puts an end to the anguish of not knowing Dom and Bruno’s whereabouts. Now we can bring them home and say goodbye with love ... Today, we also begin our quest for justice.” You can read beautifully written tributes to the two men, about how they were brought together by their love of the Amazon and a desire to tell the stories of the Indigenous peoples who live there, via the link in our bio. Illustration by Eraldo Peres/AP