TRAGEDY IN BRAZIL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 148, 8 June 1936, Page 9

TRAGEDY IN BRAZIL

Three Missionaries Ambushed By Jungle Tribes ALL BELIEVED DEAD By Telegraph-Press Assn.—Copyright LONDON, June 7. Headquarters of the Unevangelised Fields Mission has been advised from Brazil that savage Indians ambushed and are believed to have murdered three missionaries, including Messrs Frederick Dawson and Frederick Roberts, of Australia, in the wild region of the River Xingu. The news has only just been received, though they were ambushed a year ago. Meesrs Roberts and Dawson were engaged to Australian girls. The third missionary was an Englishman, Frederick Wright. The trio was nicknamed the Three Freds. With Roberts, who had been ten years in Brazil working entirely among the Indians, in charge, they set oft from Belem to visit jungle tribes, and, when they did not return at the anticipated time, two British fellow-missionaries began a search. They followed the Xingu and its tributary, the Zinhu, to Nova Olinda, the last town of Brizilian civilisation, and thence continued into the jungle, where they found the missing men’s canoe smashed, and their unoccupied huts. The searchers fruitlessly questioned numerous Indians and finally heard a description of the ambush from a remote tribe.