The mystery around this small tribe has led several curious to try to approach them, something that the defending organizations of indigenous peoples describe as a “new and growing threat” for the inhabitants of the place.
Especially after what happened on March 31, when Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, a 24 -year -old American tourist, landed on the island without authorization.
In a new attempt by a visitor to meet the members of this community, Polyakov not only recorded part of its route but even left a can of soda and a coconut on the shore.
Because the income is restricted – by a law of 1956 that seeks to protect the integrity of the inhabitants of the place – the local authorities of India arrested the young American.
“Influencers are considered a growing threat to this isolated indigenous tribe,” Janhavee Moole, a journalist of BBC Marathi, tells BBC Mundo, from Bombay.
Indian anthropologists and activists have expressed concern about the attempts to contact the tribe of some individuals in recent years. They consider that the tribe has made clear their desire more than once not to have contact with people outside the place, and demand that this be respected.
The Organization for the Defense of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Survival International, said that with his visit, the American endangered his own life and that of the tribe.
In addition, he described the fact of “deeply disturbing” and warned that influencers are a “new and growing threat” for this type of tribes.
For their part, the United States authorities reported that they are aware of the case and that “the situation will follow closely.”
But who are the inhabitants of Sentinel and what is the risk of visiting them?
Isolated from India
This tribe lives on a small island called Isla Sentinel Norte, in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, a group of islands about 1,200 km from Continental India.
They live five tribes considered “particularly vulnerable.” These include the Jarawas and the Sentineles of the North, who remain largely isolated from the rest of the world.
The little that is known about the latter is that they migrated about 60,000 years ago from Africa, they are one of the very few hunting-gatherer tribes in the world and inhabit a small jungle area.
Experts estimate that between 50 and 200 people integrate the tribe, although numbers are not known exactly. Its culture is not yet known, not even its language, which is remarkably different from other languages of the nearby islands.
They are also distinguished by the use of arc and arrows, tools with which they hunt and defend, and have proven to be hostile with foreigners.
“The Sentineles are known for their hostility over any foreigner. They usually avoid any contact attempt and, sometimes, have responded with lethal force,” says Moole.
In 1974, a film director who visited the place received an arrow in one leg, when his team tried to film a documentary for National Geographic.
And in November 2018, John Allen Chau, a 27 -year -old American, was killed by the tribe after visiting the island.
Local officials said the young man was a Christian missionary.
They shot him with arches and arrows. The reports then suggested that he had bribed fishermen to take him to the island.
Strategic Islands
Indian researchers conducted some studies and tried to establish contact with the tribe.
In 1991, some sweet gifts such as coconuts distributed and tried to communicate in sign language but did not receive a good answer. For that reason, a little later, the Indian government left these expeditions and prohibited strangers from approaching the island.
After the 2004 tsunami, the government made recognition to make sure that the islanders were alive, but when the helicopters flew over the island, the people of the place shot them with arrows.
The island set, of which Sentinel is part, is strategically important for India, since they are located in the Bengal Bay, near the main maritime routes of the Indo -Pacific.
Therefore, this place is established as a strategic point to supervise maritime traffic in the Malaca Strait, a key commercial route for many countries, including China.
For this reason, India has been looking to build an international container transford port similar to Hong Kong in the region. However, many believe that these projects could represent an existential threat to this tribe.
The risk of visits to the tribe
The inhabitants of this tribe have lived in almost total isolation for tens of thousands of years.
This means that they probably do not have immunity to common diseases such as flu or measles.
For this reason, visits have been prohibited since 1956 due to the risk that the tribe is contaminated by diseases external to the community.
In that sense, the Indian Coast Guard keeps the area around the island to prevent the curious from approaching the place.
“Approaching them could be deadly, since they generally do not receive strangers well and have shown hostility towards anyone who did it in the past,” says Moole from Bombay.
The growing exposure of the tribe is what worries indigenous protection groups.
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