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This photo of September 8, 2007 shows the southern coastline of Andaman Island, near Port Blair, capital of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. (Desha-Kalyan Chowdhury / AFP / Getty Images)
NEW DELHI – A 27-year-old American tourist was killed by members of one of India's most isolated hunter-gatherer tribes, according to police in the isolated Andaman Islands and Nicobar.
American John Allen Chau (Alabama) paid five fishermen to take him to North Sentinel Island, said Deepak Yadav, a senior city police official in Port Blair.
The island is home to the tiny tribe of the Sentinels, whose members refuse any contact with the world and react with hostility and violence to the attempts of interaction from the outside. The island is forbidden to visitors under Indian law.
Yadav said that Chau and the fishermen arrived on the island around midnight on November 14th. The next day, Chau used a kayak to approach the island and tried to talk with the islanders, known for shooting arrows on the intruders. The fishermen told police that they saw Chau for the last time alive on November 16th.
The next morning, they saw his body "dragged and buried," Yadav said.
Police sent a helicopter to conduct reconnaissance operations on Tuesday and another team also visited the area on Wednesday. An investigation into a murder is underway and the fishermen involved have been arrested, along with a friend from Chau in Port Blair who helped organize the island's boat tour, said the police chief.
"They were very aware of the situation, but they still planned a boat and all the rest," said Yadav, a gesture he described as "pushing [Chau] in the mouth of death. "
Chau had already made four trips to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands from 2015 and arrived in Port Blair in mid-October on a tourist visa, according to the police.
"We are aware of reports of an American citizen living in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands," said a spokesman for the US Embassy in Chennai, southern India. . "When an American citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as part of their research efforts. For privacy reasons, we have no other comments. "
Nobody knows exactly how many Sentinels live on North Sentinel Island. Indian census agents have attempted to count them remotely, but their number is less than 100.
The Indian government has adopted a policy of "isolation with minimal intervention" vis-à-vis the Sentinelese and several other tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal, off the east coast from India.
In 2006, the Sentinelese reportedly killed two fishermen whose boat allegedly drifted off the island after falling asleep. The tribes would have shot arrows on helicopters sent to recover the bodies.
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