A 24-year-old American tourist has been detained in India for entering a remote tribal area where islanders have no contact with the outside world, police said on Wednesday.
Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, whose father is from Ukraine, set foot on North Sentinel Island, a part of India’s Andaman Islands, in an attempt to make contact with the isolated Sentinelese tribe, police said.
He recorded his visit to the island, leaving a can of Coke and a coconut on the shore as an “offering” to the people of the tribe.
The influencer, who runs a YouTube channel documenting extreme travel and previously visited Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, travelled nine hours in a small rubber dinghy with an outboard motor to reach the island and used binoculars to survey the area but saw no inhabitants.
He tried to get the attention of native people by blowing a whistle and briefly landed on the shore for a few minutes before leaving. He left the offerings and collected sand samples while recording a video, police said.
He arrived in the capital, Port Blair, on 27 March and was arrested three days later on Sunday after he was reported to police by locals, who saw him taking a boat to North Sentinel Island.
Andaman and Nicobar, a former British penal colony, is a group of 572 islands located more than 1,200km (700 miles) from mainland India. The Indian government strictly monitors access to some remote parts of the federal territory, which are home to five known indigenous tribes, some of whom are hostile to outsiders.
These tribes include the Sentinelese, Jarwa, Onge, Shompens, and Great Andamanese, and are among the world’s last remaining isolated communities.
Indians and foreigners alike are prohibited from traveling within 5km (3 miles) of the island to protect the indigenous people from external diseases and safeguard their way of life.
Andaman and Nicobar director general of police HS Dhaliwal said police were alerted after locals spotted the man near Khuramadera Beach in South Andaman, relatively close to the Jarwa Reserve Forest, which is a protected area for the Indigenous Jarwa tribe.
“We are getting more details about him and his intention to visit the reserved tribal area. We are also trying to find out where else he has visited during his stay in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. We are questioning the hotel staff where he was staying in Port Blair,” the police told Press Trust of India.
Mr Dhaliwal told AFP the American tourist “landed briefly for about five minutes, left the offerings on the shore, collected sand samples, and recorded a video before returning to his boat”.
“A review of his GoPro camera footage showed his entry and landing into the restricted North Sentinel Island.”
A formal complaint has been registered against him under the Foreigners Act, 1946, and for entering a tribal reserve or restricted area without permission.
Mr Polyakov was reportedly on his third trip to the islands after visiting twice last year. The police said they have informed the home ministry about his detention and that officials there were in touch with the US embassy.
Tribal lands are legally protected under the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956, which prohibits unauthorised entry.
In 2018, American missionary John Allen Chau, 27, was killed by the Sentinelese, an endangered tribe, after illegally trying to enter their territory to preach Christianity. He was allegedly killed after tribespeople shot him with arrows as his boat approached the island.
In 2006, two Indian fishermen who accidentally drifted to the North Sentinel Island were killed by the Sentinelese tribe. When an Indian military helicopter later flew low over the island, tribal members fired arrows at it in a show of defiance.
The navy has since enforced a buffer zone around the island, ensuring no outsiders come close.
