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Dom Phillips (archive image)
Photo: Joao Laet/AP
The hope of finding Dom Phillips and his companion alive is dwindling.
Brazilian authorities have located personal belongings of the missing British journalist and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest.
"Items belonging to the missing persons were found: a medical card, black trousers, a black sandal and a pair of boots belonging to Bruno Pereira, as well as a pair of boots and a backpack belonging to Dom Phillips and containing personal clothing," explained the federal police on Sunday.
According to the fire department, the items were found "near the house" of a 41-year-old suspect.
Investigators arrested him on Wednesday.
According to the police, drugs and cartridges for an assault rifle were found on him during a random check.
Witnesses said they saw the man chasing Phillips and Pereira's boat.
Traces of blood were later found in the man's boat.
Authorities then began searching the area around his home.
Remote area attracts shady characters
The 57-year-old Phillips, who writes regularly for the British »Guardian« as a freelance journalist, and Pereira, an expert on indigenous peoples, had been researching a book about violence against indigenous people in the Javari Valley near the border with Peru.
The two men have been missing for a week.
Gold miners, poachers and drug gangs are active in the region.
According to indigenous organizations, the men had previously been threatened.
Phillips had taken a year off from current reporting, he received a scholarship from the American Alicia Patterson Foundation and is working on the book about the future of the Amazon region.
He also traveled to the remote Vale do Javari for this: all the conflicts in the region are concentrated there.
jok/AFP