India: World's Most Isolated Tribe Kills Invaders
Members of the world's most isolated tribe, the Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands, killed on 26 January two fishermen
who had illegally approached their island. The Sentinelese, who were photographed after the December 2004 tsunami firing
an arrow at a helicopter over their island, have resisted contact with the outside world for up to 60,000 years. They
are under threat from poachers illegally fishing and diving for lobster around their island.
Survival's director Stephen Corry said today, 'Contact with the outside world could very quickly wipe out this unique
and vulnerable tribe. The local administration must ensure that the Sentinelese are left alone as long as that is their
wish - and what happened last month made it very clear that it is. These tragic deaths could have been avoided if the
authorities had been enforcing the law.'
The tribe killed the two men, Sunder Raj (48) and Pandit Tiwari (52), after they had slept overnight in their boat near
North Sentinel Island. It is illegal to go within five kilometres of the island, in order to protect the Sentinelese
from exploitation, violence, and diseases to which they have no immunity. But increasing numbers of people from
neighbouring islands visit the island to dive for lobster close to the shore and to hunt pigs on the island, depriving
the tribe of essential foodstuffs.
The Sentinelese tribe is thought to number between 50 and 200 people. Wreckage salvagers killed many in the late 1980s
and early 1990s when they visited the island with guns to try to salvage iron and other goods from a shipwreck.
The related Jarawa tribe stopped resisting contact with outsiders in 1998. They are now plagued by intruders on their
land stealing the animals they hunt, bringing in alcohol and sexually exploiting Jarawa women.
Samir Acharya of local environmental organisation SANE said today, 'The Indian Coast Guard and Police must be commended
in this case for resisting local pressure to retrieve the men's bodies, thereby avoiding further contact with the
Sentinelese.'