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NEW DELHI – American John Allen Chau first visited the remote island of North Sentinel in the Indian Ocean with gifts such as a football and a fish.
He has traded with some members of the tribe – who survive by hunting, fishing and picking wild plants and known to attack anyone who approaches with bows, arrows and spears – until they reach the end of the day. they get angry and shoot an arrow at him.
There was a book that Chau was carrying and the 26-year-old adventurer and Christian missionary went swimming until a fishing boat was waiting at a safe distance.
That night, he wrote about his adventures and left his notes to the fishermen. He returned to the island the next day, 16 November.
It is unclear what happened at the time, but the next morning the fishermen observed from the boat the men of the tribe who were dragging Chau's body on the beach.
Dependera Pathak, chief policy officer of the Indian islands of Andaman and Nicobar, announced Wednesday that the seven fishermen had been arrested for helping the Americans reach North Sentinel Island. Visits to the island are severely limited by the Indian government and officials were working with anthropologists to recover the body.
"It was a misguided adventure case," Pathak said.
It seems that Chau was shot down by arrows, but the cause of death can only be confirmed when his body is found, Pathak told The Associated Press.
In a post on Instagram, her family said she was crying like "her beloved son, brother, uncle and best friend". The family also said that she forgave her killers and called for the release of those who had helped her in her quest to reach the island.
"He ventured voluntarily and his local contacts do not need to be persecuted for his own actions," said the family.
According to the authorities, Chau arrived in the area on October 16 and stayed in a hotel while he was preparing to visit the island. It was not his first time in the region: he had visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 2015 and 2016. North Sentinel is part of the Andaman Islands and lies at the intersection of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.
With the help of a friend, Chau hired the seven fishermen at $ 325 to take her on a boat, which also towed the kayak that Chau was reaching for the first time. island, said Pathak.
After the fishermen realized that Chau had been killed, they left for Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman Islands and Nicobar, where they announced the news to a friend of Chau, who informed his family, said Pathak. The police accused the seven fishermen of endangering the life of the American by bringing him into a forbidden zone.
One of Chau's friends said that the adventurer spent a month at his home in Cape Town, South Africa, before traveling to India.
Casey Prince, 39, declined to talk about what Chau had told him about his upcoming travel plans, saying he would prefer to talk about the kind of man his friend was.
"If he took a risk, he was very conscious of it," Prince said, remembering the time when Chau had told him that he had been bitten by a rattlesnake.
The two men met for the first time about six years ago, while Chau was director of the Oral Roberts University football team in Oklahoma. Chau and other members of the team traveled to South Africa to participate in a football development and social leadership program founded by the Prince, the Ubuntu Football Academy.
The prince described it as being easy to love, kind, cheerful and animated by two passions: a love of the outdoors and a fervent Christianity.
"He was an explorer in the soul," Prince said. "He loved creation and was there, I think I probably found and connected with God in this way and deeply so."
Prior to attending Oral Roberts University, Chau had lived in southwestern Washington State and had gone to Vancouver Christian High School. Telephone messages left to some members of his family were not immediately returned on Wednesday.
"He was a beloved son, a brother, an uncle and a best friend for us," wrote the Chau family in his Instagram post. "For others, he was a Christian missionary, an EMT in the wild, an international football coach and mountaineer, he loved God, life, helping those in need and he had that love for the Sentinels. "
Survival International, an organization that works for the rights of tribal peoples, said the killing of the American should prompt the Indian authorities to adequately protect the lands of the Sentinels and other Andaman tribes.
"The British colonial occupation of the Andaman Islands decimated the tribes who lived there, wiping out thousands of tribesmen.A mere fraction of the original population survived.Fear of strangers is therefore perfectly understandable "said Stephen Corry, group director, said in a statement.
Shiv Viswanathan, a sociologist and professor at Jindal Global Law School, said North Sentinel Island was a protected area and not open to tourists. "The exact population of the tribe is not known, but it is decreasing and the government needs to protect them," Viswanathan said.
Poachers are known to fish illegally in the waters around the island, catching turtles and diving for lobster and sea cucumber fishing. Tribespeople killed two Indian fishermen in 2006 when their boat came to sea. detached and drifted on the shore.
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Story of ASHOK SHARMA, AP
AP authors, Gene Johnson and Phuong Le, in Seattle, and Gillian Flaccus, in Portland, Oregon, contributed.
