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The Fate of the Kidnapper

The Fate of the Kidnapper

In 1979 the Brazilian government gave Chico Prestes a plot of land in the state of Rondonia, in the Western Amazon, in an area regularly hunted by the unknown Uru Eu Wau Wau tribe. One day Chico returned from the forest to find two of his sons dying, riddled with arrows, and the youngest, seven-year-old Fabio, apparently taken off by the Indians.

This was the start of an 18-year quest by the Prestes family to find out what happened to little Fabio - a quest that caught the imagination of Brazil, highlighting the Amazon as a battleground between Indians and invading colonists. The quest also uncovered the prior murder and kidnap of Uru Eu Wau Wau tribespeople, but the real tragedy is not the cycle of revenge, but the onset of disease and deforestation which will end the hiding tribes' way of life for ever.

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