A high-risk expedition in the Amazon jungle has been hailed a success after it reunited an isolated tribe with missing relatives and eased tensions with a rival tribe near the Peru border.
Brazil's governmental people for indigenous peoples (FUNAI) sent a team of nearly thirty people including indigenous people from four local tribes, a doctor and medical officials into remote and inaccessible jungle to meet with members of the Korubo tribe and try to resolve an ongoing dispute in the region.
The Korubo are extremely isolated and the majority of the tribe remain uncontacted, though small groups have made contact with outsiders. FUNAI first made contact with a splinter Korubo group of around 30 people in 1996.
The tribe have earned the name "caceteiros" or "clubmen" due to the large clubs they use to protect themselves, and are recognisable by their distinct half-moon hairstyles.
Xuxu left his family and tribe in 2015 to live with other contacted Korubo. He joined FUNAI's expedition to broker peace in the area and was reunited with his brothers and other family members after years apart.
Tensions between the Korubo tribe and the nearby Matis tribe had been running high after the Korubos mistakenly believed their relatives had been killed by the Matis. Fearing they would try to take revenge, the Matis tribe repeatedly reached out to FUNAI, asking them to intervene.
"It was actually quite moving. We soon found one of the two Korubos we saw first was a brother of one of the members of the expedition," said FUNAI coordinator Bruno Pereira.
"There was a lot of emotion and tears."
The main concern of FUNAI analysts was that the isolated group would not believe that the Korubos in the expedition were in fact their relatives, which made them label the mission as "high risk."
34 people from the Korubo tribe, including three babies were also vaccinated for viruses such as flu and measles which can prove deadly to indigenous people with no immunity.
The trip lasted 32 days in the Javari Valley, an area of more than 8 million hectares in the western Amazon.
Brazilian law states that contact with isolated tribes can be used only as a last resort to preserve the lives of indigenous peoples and the expedition was FUNAI's biggest since 1996.