Posting on social media on 10 September, Emma Kelty joked about a warning she had been given about the stretch of the Amazon river she was about to enter. “So in or near Coari (60 miles) I will have my boat stolen and I will be killed too,” she wrote. “Nice.” 
 
 Two days later, Kelty, who was canoeing the length of the Amazon, said she was “in the clear”. But hours later she posted again, describing an encounter with armed men. “Turned corner and found 50 guys in motor boats with arrows!!! My face must have been a picture!! (Town was uber quiet ... too quiet!!) all go ... 
 
 “OK 30 guys ... but either way ... that’s a lot of folks in one area in boats with arrow[s] and rifles.” 
 
 Three people held in Brazil on suspicion of British kayaker's murder Read more 
 
 The following day, as she neared Coari, on the banks of the Solimões river, an Amazon tributary, Kelty triggered a distress signal. She has been missing ever since. On Tuesday, police said they had arrested three males on suspicion of her murder. 
 
 Kelty, 43, from Finchley in north-west London, resigned as head of Knollmead primary school in Surbiton in 2014 to go travelling. No stranger to solo adventures, she had been only the sixth woman to ski solo to the south pole and hiked 2,600 miles alone across the US. 
 
 She had begun kayaking in February after deciding that her next challenge would be to paddle the Amazon from its source in the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 There had already been unsettling moments in her trip, particularly since crossing the border into Brazil’s Amazonas state. On 22 August she told followers how she had paddled hard upstream to reach a beach to rest, “only to find a man waving a machete and ravens eating whatever he had killed. As I paddled hard away ... I could hear his shouts.” 
 
 
 
 In the following days she complained of broken sleep, interrupted by strangers. “Getting more tired every day,” she wrote on 23 August. “Let’s hope I don’t get [four] more guys ‘returning to visit me after dark’ tonight.” 
 
 Three days later, after a “great welcome” and day and night in São Paulo de Olivença, she reported that two men pitched up in a boat close to where she had stopped and just stayed there for two hours, stopping her from changing. “And yes, I did try to engage ... but they were the silent type.” 
 
 On 28 August she said she was “officially beyond triedness [sic]”. “Every night there has been a torch bearer and walker who comes to my tent,” she wrote. When strangers left her alone, Kelty fought “tent-bending” storms and 85% humidity. Yet there were also moments of tranquility. 
 
 “The last couple of days paddling was just what I imagined it to be,” she recounted on 5 September. “Now, I am sitting on my private beach in the sun. So quiet and just perfect.” 
 
 Emma Tamsin Kelty (@Emt101s) Enjoying a moments peace ... all is calm and just enjoying just being. #peru #so2017 #sourcetosea #riverlife #amaz… https://t.co/QFu0QAZkoq pic.twitter.com/Ak6CMLAFmO 
 
 Kelty is believed to have pitched her tent on Boieiro island, facing the town of Lauro Sodré, before she set off her locator flare last Wednesday. A 17-year-old suspect arrested on Monday in Codajás said that was where she was approached by two people. Five others arrived and the group stole her belongings. She was shot twice with a sawn-off shotgun and dumped in the river. 
 
 According to the teenager, whom police did not name for legal reasons, the group tried to sell her two mobile phones, her tablet computer and her GoPro camera in local communities. Another 17-year-old from Lauro Sodré was also arrested, as well as a third man, named as Erinei Ferreira da Silva, whose age was not given. Police are looking for four further suspects. 
 
 After Kelty’s distress call, authorities had launched a search operation involving 60 people, including divers scouring the riverbed. Residents of Lauro Sodré reported having seen Kelty alive, sailing past in her canoe. Fire officers and the Brazilian navy are continuing to look for her body and have searched the area where it was allegedly thrown. 
 
 Rocky Contos, a guide Kelty employed in Peru for the first six weeks of her trip, said he tried to warn her of the dangers she faced, but that she was determined to continue alone. “I told her there are people there who have no regard for life,” he was quoted as saying by the Times. “There are many cases of people being robbed and shot.” 
 
 River pirates are known to operate in the area where Kelty went missing. Local media reported two men were arrested in July after carrying out pirate attacks around Lauro Sodré and nearby communities. 
 
 “This region is a problematic region for pirates,” Barradas Júnior said. “It is a region that has pirates, they do robberies, and it is a disputed region because there are a lot of drugs coming from Colombia.” He said pirates had been known to attack Colombian and Peruvian drug traffickers, steal their supplies and throw their bodies in the river. 
 
 A struggle between rival Brazilian drug gangs to control the lucrative drug trade flowing down the Solimões river was blamed for a massacre in which 56 people were murdered in a prison in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, on New Year’s Day. Dozens more were killed in reprisal attacks. 
 
 The remote stretch of the Solimões where Kelty is thought to have gone missing is the same section where the state’s previous civil police chief, Thyago Garcez, disappeared in December last year, after he and other police officers got into a firefight with drugs traffickers. His body has never been found. 
 
 The Foreign Office confirmed it was supporting the family of a woman who had died in Brazil and said it was in contact with the Brazilian authorities. 
 
 In a statement released by the Foreign Office, Kelty’s siblings, Piers, Giles and Natasha, said their “active and determined sister” had recently embarked on the Pacific Crest Trail in the US, and had also explored the south pole and finally the Amazon river. 
 
 “In a world that is today a much smaller place, the explorer in our sister found herself seeking ways to prove that challenges were achievable,” the statement said. “We are extremely proud of our sister who was dearly loved by us all and her strength will be sorely missed.” ||||| One of the leaders of the gang of river pirates who robbed and murdered a British kayaker in the Amazon has been killed, police investigating the death of Emma Kelty have said. 
 
 Another man accused of being a leader in the attack, Arthur Gomes da Silva, was arrested and confessed his role, they said. 
 
 Evanilson Gomes da Costa, known as Baia, 24, was shot on Tuesday night and later died of his wounds in hospital, according to a statement by one of the suspects, who said the dead man had fired shots at former primary school headteacher Emma Kelty. 
 
 Later on Wednesday, police said they had arrested Arthur Gomes da Silva, known as ‘Bera’, the gang’s other leader, and that he has admitted his involvement. 
 
 Kelty, 43, was canoeing alone from the source of the Amazon to the Atlantic when she went missing in the Solimões area, as the upper stretches of the river are known. The area is notorious for its pirates and drug trade. 
 
 She triggered a distress signal last Wednesday, but despite an extensive search by Brazilian police and navy, her body has not yet been found. Kelty knew she was heading into a dangerous area and even joked on her Facebook about the risks she faced. 
 
 Kelty is believed to have pitched her tent on Boieiro island, facing the remote community of Lauro Sodré, before she set off her locator flare last Wednesday. A suspect arrested on Monday in Codajás said Kelty was approached by two people. Five others arrived and the group stole her belongings. 
 
 
 
 She was shot twice with a sawn-off shotgun, attacked with a machete and dumped in the river before the gang stole her mobile phones, money, a drone, a tablet and GoPro camera and tried to sell them, according to the suspect. Police named him on Wednesday as Jardel Pinheiro Gomes, known as Kael, and corrected his age to 19, not 17 as he had previously claimed. 
 
 An unnamed 17-year-old was also arrested as well as a third man, named as Erinei Ferreira da Silva, 28. 
 
 
 
 Police were hunting four further suspects, including Gomes, but learned on Wednesday that he had been hit by gunfire inside his house in Coari, a city around two hours from Lauro Sodré where Kelty is believed to have been murdered. 
 
 “According to investigations, people supposedly linked to the drug trade in the area were named as responsible for the execution of the offender, who was 24. He was rescued, taken to a hospital in the municipality, but succumbed to his injuries and died around 8.30am today,” police said in a statement. Gomes was one of the leaders of the ‘Water Pirates’ or ‘Water Rats’, a gang who stole merchandise, killed people and were connected to the drug trade, the police statement said. 
 
 José Barradas Júnior, chief detective in Coari, told the Guardian he believed da Costa was killed by rival gangsters for the possessions his gang had taken from Kelty and before dying named the man who shot him. 
 
 Later on Wednesday police found Arthur Gomes da Silva, 28, hiding in the forest near Lauro Sodré, after an anonymous tip off to the Brazilian navy, and he has since admitted his involvement, Barradas Júnior said. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Evanilson Gomes da Costa Photograph: Brazilian police 
 
 Barradas Júnior said one of the investigating officers had told him that locals reported seeing Kelty pass by in her kayak hours before she was killed. They had tried to warn her of the danger she could be in and offered their houses for her to sleep in for safety, but she did not understand. 
 
 “Neither she nor they could communicate. They were trying to tell her the risk she was running,” he said. 
 
 He said Gomes da Costa and his accomplice Arthur Gomes da Silva, known as Beira, were two of the leaders of the Water Rats. Two other suspects are said to still at large, named as Erimar and Nilson Ferreira da Silva, both brothers of Erinei. 
 
 
 
 According to the testimony, Gomes da Costa and da Silva approached Kelty’s tent and da Costa shot her with a shotgun, wounding her. When she shouted in pain, they assumed she was Peruvian and possibly carrying drugs. 
 
 
 
 Barradas Júnior said: “They are used to robbing Peruvians on the river, they have already done this with other foreigners who passed there, generally strangers who carry drugs.” 
 
 Wounded, yet conscious Kelty was shot again dragged to the river and attacked with a machete, Barradas Júnior said. Then, he said, “they threw her in the middle of the river, which is the deepest part”. 
 
 Barradas Júnior said the authorities should warn other Britons planning to visit the Amazon to travel in organised groups, and not alone – especially in the Solimões river area, which is a major trafficking route for drugs from Peru and Colombia that are heading to Europe. 
 
 On Wednesday Kelty’s brothers Piers and Giles and her sister Tash posted a tribute on her Facebook. It said: “Emma was an active and determined sister who challenged herself, latterly through her adventures on the Pacific Coast Trail, as well as in the South Pole and Amazon River. 
 
 
 
 “In a world that is today a much smaller place, the explorer in our sister found herself seeking ways to prove that challenges were achievable. We are extremely proud of our sister who was dearly loved by us all and her strength will be sorely missed. We wish to give our immense thanks to the Brazilian navy, police and Foreign Office for their action and support,” they wrote, adding links to three charities Kelty had been fundraising for: Cancer Research UK, Cystic Fibrosis Trust and Teach Africa. ||||| Image copyright Emma Kelty 
 
 British kayaker Emma Kelty was shot by a gang of seven men who threw her body into the Amazon, say Brazilian police. 
 
 Locals reported seeing Ms Kelty still conscious when she was in the gang's canoe. Police say they won't know if she was alive when she was dumped in the river until her body is found. 
 
 The 43-year-old, from London, had been attempting to travel the entire length of the Amazon on her own. 
 
 She was killed last week in an area known for drug traffickers and pirates. 
 
 Police have arrested three men over her murder, but another man thought to be involved has since been killed. 
 
 The former head teacher was camping by the upper stretches of the river in northern Brazil on 13 September when she was spotted by a gang of "pirates", who were in a canoe, police said. 
 
 They fired two shots at her tent from a 20 calibre rifle before stealing her belongings, including a drone, two mobile phones and a tablet. 
 
 The suspects, according to police, say they tried to make it more difficult for her body to be recovered by cutting her shoulder with a knife. 
 
 They wanted to attract animals with her blood and prevent her body from floating. 
 
 Image copyright Brazilian Police Image caption Evanilson Gomes da Costa is thought to have shot Emma Kelty, before being killed by a rival gang 
 
 Lead investigator Jose Afonso Barradas said the men tried to sell her possessions and "were heard boasting about having a lot of money and gold". 
 
 One of the men, Evanilson Gomes da Costa, is believed to have been responsible for firing the rifle at Ms Kelty - according to Brazilian police he died on Wednesday after also being shot. 
 
 Police said it was likely he was killed by a rival gang who were trying to get hold of Ms Kelty's stolen cash. 
 
 Jardel Pinheiro Gomes, 19, Erinei Ferreira da Silva, 28, and a 17-year-old boy have been arrested and police are still looking for three other men. 
 
 The Brazilian Navy and divers from the Amazon fire brigade are searching for Ms Kelty's body. 
 
 Her kayak was found by police, who have recovered some of her stolen belongings - one phone, one credit card, and one GPS system. 
 
 Image copyright Brazilian Police Image caption The Brazilian Navy are helping with the search for Emma Kelty's body 
 
 Image copyright Marinha do Brasil Image caption Her kayak was found by the Navy after she was killed 
 
 Ms Kelty was 42 days into a 4,000-mile trip along the Amazon river, which she had been documenting on social media, when she was attacked. 
 
 Just a few days before her death, she wrote on Twitter about the dangers of the area she was entering: "So in or near Coari (100km away) I will have my boat stolen and I will be killed too. Nice." 
 
 Her family said they were extremely proud of her and "her strength would be sorely missed". 
 
 Ms Kelty's brothers Piers and Giles, and sister Natasha, said in a statement: "Emma was an active and determined sister who challenged herself, latterly through her adventures on the Pacific Coast Trail, as well as in the South Pole and Amazon River. 
 
 "In a world that is today a much smaller place, the explorer in our sister found herself seeking ways to prove that challenges were achievable. 
 
 "We wish to give our immense thanks to the Brazilian Navy, police and Foreign Office for their action and support."
– As she traveled through Brazil's northern region on a mission to kayak the 4,000-mile length of the Amazon River, Emma Kelty repeated a warning from a Peruvian guide in tongue-and-cheek fashion. "I will have my boat stolen and I will be killed too," she tweeted. "Nice." It appears the latter part of that warning has come true. On Sept. 13—a day after remarking that she'd come across dozens of men in motor boats armed with arrows and rifles near Coari, an area known to be frequented by river pirates and drug traffickers—Kelty sent out a distress signal and then went silent, reports the Guardian. Authorities now believe the 43-year-old British woman had pitched her tent on the banks of an Amazon tributary near Lauro Sodré when she was approached by men who shot her and threw her body in the river. A man and two 17-year-olds are in custody while police search for four other suspects who may have tried to sell Kelty's tech devices. A search for Kelty's body is also underway. A statement from Kelty's siblings note they're "extremely proud" of their sister, who sought "to prove that challenges were achievable." (She had quit her job as a school principal in 2014 to travel solo.) Back in February, Kelty—who became the sixth woman to ski solo to the South Pole in January—told the BBC that surviving encounters with "people who organ-harvest and rob and fire guns" was "half the challenge" of her Amazon adventure. "But it's about minimizing the risk," she said. "I'm going to a self-defense course which is going to be tailored to de-arming people, so if I do come across that situation at least I'm prepared for it."