British Sportswoman Is Killed on Kayak Expedition in the Amazon

09/20/2017 - 10h35

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FABIANO MAISONNAVE

FROM MANAUS

A British sportswoman crossing the Amazon in a kayak was robbed and murdered in the Lauro Sodré community, in the municipality of Coari, some 420 km from Manaus by the Solimões River.

The information is from the Civil Police of the Amazonas State.

Emma Kelty, 43, was attacked and killed by seven criminals, according to the Civil Police.

One of the suspects, a 17 year-old, was apprehended on Monday (18th) and allegedly have confessed to the crime. The accomplices have already been identified: one was arrested, and the others are on the run.

According to the police, the teenager said Kelty was killed with 20-caliber rifle shots and then dismembered.

The Navy and the Fire Brigade are making searches with boats and a helicopter on the stretch of river where the body would have been thrown.

"They are not drug traffickers who extort large amounts of drugs in the rivers of the Amazon. They are small traffickers and drug users who commit crimes of opportunity," police chief Ivo Martins told the newspaper "A Crítica".

Kelty had been missing since last Wednesday (13th). On that day, a surveillance company called the Navy after receiving an alert from the canoeist's emergency locator.

TWITTER

The British canoeist was writing about the journey on Twitter, and presented herself as the "sixth woman to ski alone to the South Pole."

Kelty's journey began on July 20, in the Peruvian Andes, where the Solimões River is born. She entered Brazil on August 21, in the city of Tabatinga (AM). She already had paddled about 1,150 km in Brazilian territory.

Translated by MARINA DELLA VALLE

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