(26 Aug 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Santa Rosa Island, Peru – 18 August 2025
1. Travelling shot along the Amazon River
2. Floating houses
3. Salvador Mitidieri, a Peruvian boat owner, with his boat
4. People getting on Mitidieri’s boat
5. Mitidieri sailing boat
6. Two men travelling by boat
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tabatinga, Brazil – 18 August 2025
7. Mitidieri’s boat arriving at dock
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Santa Rosa Island, Peru – 18 August 2025
8. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Salvador Mitidieri, Peruvian boat owner:
"It’s been affected a little, especially Santa Rosa. But at the same time, I am grateful to President (Gustavo) Petro for these statements. This is the reason why Santa Rosa has grown in popularity and become famous, as we say here."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tabatinga, Brazil – 18 August 2025
9. Various of Peruvian students living in Tabatinga, Brazil boarding the boat to school on Santa Rosa Island
10. Children inside boat as boat is on way to school
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Santa Rosa Island, Peru – 18 August 2025
11. Mitidieri next to his boat
12. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Salvador Mitidieri, Peruvian boat owner:
"This job, how can I say it? I really like it, bringing children who are the future of Peru. Maybe the children I bring will one day be doctors, lawyers, police officers. I see these children excited to cross a river to study in their country (referring to Santa Rosa Island belonging to Peru)."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Santa Rosa Island, Peru – 18 August 2025
13. Various of Peruvian students living in Tabatinga arriving at Santa Rosa Island to go to class
STORYLINE:
Rain or shine, every weekday from March to December, boat owner Salvador Mitidieri ferries students from the shore of the Amazon River in Brazil to the only primary school in miles on Santa Rosa — a remote island that is now the subject of a territorial dispute between Peru and Colombia.
Mitidieri’s daily job is just one example of how the diplomatic quarrel between the two South American neighbors over the island has had little effect on the life of its roughly 3,000 residents.
Peru maintains it owns Santa Rosa Island based on treaties about a century old, but Colombia disputes that ownership because the island had not yet emerged from the Amazon River at the time.
Despite the ongoing exchange of words between government officials, life in Santa Rosa continues undisturbed.
"This job, how can I say it? I really like it, bringing children who are the future of Peru," said Mitidieri.
Residents identify as Peruvians, but coexist peacefully with their Colombian and Brazilian neighbors, and often rely on those countries for basic needs.
Named after a 16th-century saint, Santa Rosa has no running water or sewage system.
People cross the river to cities in Colombia or Brazil to see a doctor, but children from those places come here to attend school.
Mitidieri, the boat operator, begins his workday on the Tabatinga dock in Brazil, waiting for students to ferry to Santa Rosa’s sole primary school, identified only by the number “601014.”
He said he believes the local relationships have nothing to do with the dispute between countries and that leaders like Colombian President Gustavo Petro simply don’t know the reality in the Amazon.
“Maybe the children I bring will one day be doctors, lawyers, police officers,” he said, steering his boat, as dozens of other small vessels crossed the Amazon River in different directions.
AP Video shot by Marko Alvarez
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