About North Sentinel Island

North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands, which includes South Sentinel Island, in the Bay of Bengal. It is home to the Sentinelese who, often violently, reject any contact with the outside world, and are among the last people worldwide to remain virtually untouched by modern civilization. Nominally, the island belongs to the South Andaman administrative district, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In practice, Indian authorities recognize the islanders' desire to be left alone and restrict their role to remote monitoring; they do not prosecute them for killing non-Sentinelese people.0The island is in effect a sovereign area under Indian protection. Access to North Sentinel Island and its buffer zone is strictly restricted under the Protection of Aboriginal Tribe (Regulation), 1956, and Regulations under the Indian Forest Act, 1927.

About Sentinelese tribes,

Sentinelese is an endangered hunter-gatherer tribe living on the North Sentinel Island of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. They are officially Indians, but their language and lifestyle are nothing like that of mainland Indians, or even other Andaman islanders. The Sentinelese are completely cut off physically, socially, culturally, and economically even from their immediate neighbors. This, coupled with the fact that they may be the last surviving Pre-Neolithic tribe on Earth, makes them a fascinating modern-day anthropological mystery. However, approaching the Sentinelese to study their ways has not been an option for a long time. One of the major reasons is contact with the tribe is restricted under law. The Protection of Aboriginal Tribe regulation of 1956, and the Indian Forest Act of 1927 both protect these indigenous people and their delicate ecosystem. Also, the Sentinelese are reclusive and hostile to outsiders, and often keep visitors (including aircraft) at bay with volleys of arrows. Their home on North Sentinel Island, in the Indian Ocean, is just under 60 square kilometers and is 1,200km from the Indian mainland. The island has belonged to India since 1947 but is recognized as a sovereign state. Rough estimates have put the Sentinelese population at between 50 and 150. It is illegal to get within 3 nautical miles of the island and in 2017, the Indian Government introduced laws that forbid taking photographs or making videos of the Andaman tribes. The Sentinelese survived the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and fired arrows at an Indian Navy helicopter while it was conducting a welfare check. One of the reasons for keeping them isolated is a lack of genetic immunity to common diseases like influenza and measles.

About survival international

It is the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights. It is the only organization that champions tribal peoples around the world, which helps them defend their lives, protect their lands, and determine their own futures. They prevent the annihilation of tribal peoples and give them a platform to speak to the world so they can bear witness to the genocidal violence, slavery, and racism they face on a daily basis. By lobbying the powerful the organization helps defend the lives, lands, and futures of people who should have the same rights as other contemporary societies.