Fernando Pereira

Fernando Pereira

Fernando Pereira (10 May 1950 – 10 July 1985) was a freelance Portuguese-Dutch photographer, who drowned when French intelligence (DGSE) detonated a bomb and sank the Rainbow Warrior, owned by the environmental organisation Greenpeace on 10 July 1985. The bombing of the boat had been designed to make the ship unsalvageable. The first smaller bomb bent the propeller shaft, making repair uneconomic. Pereira stayed inside the boat to get his camera and other pieces of equipment. The second, more powerful explosion, designed to sink the boat, caused a huge inrush of seawater that drowned Pereira. The Rainbow Warrior led a flotilla of yachts protesting against French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia and was about to depart Auckland for a campaign of legal demonstrations in international waters near the French military operational areas at Moruroa Atoll.

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