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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Tom Phillips in Amazonas state. Photographs by João Laet

‘Tomorrow’s our D-day’: on the frontline of the fight to save the Amazon

People in military camouflage gear on a boat in a jungle. Flames can be see ahead of the boat
The ‘theatre of operations’ is an inhospitable wilderness where a distinctly unwelcoming troika of narco-traffickers, pirates and venomous creatures lies in wait. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

As world leaders gathered in France to remember the 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, a Brazilian band of brothers assembled deep in the jungle to stage a fight of their own on the Amazon’s river beaches, landing grounds and creeks.

“Tomorrow’s our D-day,” declared the group’s commander, Felipe Finger, as his airborne special forces unit prepared to mark the second anniversary of the murders of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips with what they hoped would be a famous offensive against the criminals obliterating the greatest tropical rainforest on Earth.

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