Death of American missionary could put this indigenous tribe's survival at risk
The violent death of an American missionary on a remote island in the Indian Ocean in mid-November raises new and urgent questions about the survival of uncontacted and isolated tribes and their right to remain free from interference from the outside world.
John Allen Chau, 26, a self-described “adventurer” from Vancouver, Washington, sought to convert a reclusive tribe to Christianity, trespassing on North Sentinel Island to do so.
The coral-fringed island, which is about the size of Manhattan and strictly off-limits to outsiders, harbors one of the planet’s most isolated hunter-gatherer societies, known as the Sentinelese. North Sentinel is part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a sprawling archipelago administered by India that stretches between India’s southern tip and the west coast of Myanmar.
No one knows for sure how long the Sentinelese—the last demographically intact, essentially uncontacted tribe of the Andamans—have lived there, but some studies indicate the tribe may have migrated from Africa tens of thousands of years ago.
Like uncontacted and isolated tribes elsewhere in the world, most notably in the Amazon rain forest, the Sentinelese are considered to be at high risk for contagious diseases borne by outsiders, against which they have little or no immunological defense.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/death-of-american-missionary-could-put-this-indigenous-tribes-survival-at-risk/ar-BBQcZVK?li=BBnb7Kz
= new reply since forum marked as read
