“I don’t want to die,” wrote the missionary in his journal, after a child had shot an arrow at him, and his Bible taken. And yet, the young man returned to the island of the natives in the Indian ocean – and was not seen living. These scenes are not being played hundreds of years ago, but less than two weeks ago.
The 27-year-old American, John Chau had hired a fisherman to bring him to the North-Sentinel-island – part of the island chain of the Andaman Islands belonging to India but closer to Myanmar. The survival of indigenous people – the so-called Sentinelese, the last stone age people in the world – it is prohibited to approach the 60-square-mile island with a sandy beach umringtem forest on less than five kilometres.
Because even for the police, the officials are now faced with a Dilemma: Should they try to retrieve the body? How will they determine in the case of death, if you are not allowed to approach the only witnesses – and already no one understands its language? It was a very difficult case, says the police chief of the island group, Dependra Pathak. On the one hand, there is a display for the murder, which had to be investigated. On the other hand, the default: “Finger way nor with respect to the indigenous people”.
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The island and the surrounding waters within a Radius of three nautical miles (5,6 kilometers) are restricted and may not be entered
©Gautam Singh/AP, DPA, Sentinelese came around 50,000 years ago from Africa
The Sentinelese came according to experts, probably about 50,000 years ago from Africa on the island and is still today, an original life as hunters and gatherers. Their number is estimated to be less than 100. Little more is known about them, as you gave it to Strangers to always understand clearly that you want to be left alone.
On the island prior to India, This is the man who wanted to bring indigenous people, Jesus died. They killed him with an arrow and bow
So, too, Chau, after he had approached them the first Time and said: “My Name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you.” The diary entries of the lost adventurer and a letter to his family who asked the police to the media. With the arrows at the armed Sentinelese, yelling at him. He was paddled as fast as lightning way, give up.
The family of the Slain, issued the following statement on Instagram:
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John Allen Chau
“you might think of me as crazy, but I think all this is worth it, to announce to these people of Jesus,” wrote the missionary and his family. He said the fishermen had brought him in, they could leave; he was going to spend the night on the island. The fishermen said later to the police. Chau was aware of what was coming to them in the case of the Sentinelese: “Please be neither for you nor God is evil, if I am killed,” he wrote.
the fishing the next day to Betxlarge the island returned, they saw according to their own information, such as the residents Chaus, dragged the lifeless body through the Sand. The police drove twice since then with the coast guard before the coast of the island. “We have been watching the beach through binoculars, and the Sentinelese have come with arrows and bows to the fore. We have kept our distance,” says chief of police Pathak. “We don’t want any confrontations.”
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The apply in voluntary exile on the island of the living Nautilus as the last vorjungsteinzeitliche people of the earth
©Survival International, DPA, researchers, indigenous gifts
brought to The police consultation with anthropologists, including Trilok Nath Pandit – the man who knows so well how no one else with the Sentinelese. Already in 1967, he led an Expedition to North Sentinel island. There are many more in which he put together with other researchers, gifts such as coconuts, metal objects, and live pigs on the beach behind and from a safe distance in the water the reactions of the Sentinelese watched, followed. Always they were hostile. “We do not understand your language, but it was not difficult to understand that they did not want us on their island,” says Pandit.
After the killing of US citizens “, you have us staring at” Indian police approaching indigenous island people, to 400 metres AFP
He had always heard. The should have had Chau do, he says. “He provoked them, after they had made it clear that he was welcome,” says the now 84-Year-old.
In all the years Pandit came close only once, in 1991, the Sentinelese correctly. At the time, some of them waded – all of them naked, some of them brought the coconuts to take with headdress or yellow color in the face – into the shallow water, personally. Why you at once did not know Pandit. A Boy with a knife to him but, he should not approach the beach better.
the mid-nineties, the Indian government expeditions. It had been understood that this large might cause trouble – for example, through the spread of diseases such as measles or the flu, in the 19th century. Century had tasted many of the indigenous people on the Andaman Islands for life.
authorities were once corpses mountains
therefore, the organization Survival International, which campaigns for the rights of Indigenous peoples calls on the authorities to try to recover Chaus corpse. This would be for the security forces as well as for the Sentinelese highly dangerous. Local researchers and journalists warned on Tuesday in a letter prior to further escalation.
The history of the case of two fishermen who were killed in the year 2006, Sentinelese, after their boat was driven on to the beach of the island belongs to. As the coast guard came to fetch the buried in the Sand, corpses, attacked the inhabitants of the island their helicopter. Only one of the dead fisherman could be salvaged.
The Sentinelese are not aggressive, says Pandit. “They are outsiders, intruders,” he explains. “We should respect their desire to be left alone.”
fin/Nick Kaiser and Sunrita Sen / DPA
