![]() The captain of Primrose radioed for an urgent drop of firearms so his crew could defend themselves. After the Primrose grounded on the North Sentinel Island reef, crewmen several days later noticed that some men carrying spears and arrows were building boats on the beach. The cargo ship MV Rusley ran aground on coastal reefs in mid-1977, and the MV Primrose did so on 2 August 1981. ![]() In 1975 Leopold III of Belgium, on a tour of the Andamans, was taken by local dignitaries for an overnight cruise to the waters off North Sentinel Island. Indian exploratory parties under orders to establish friendly relations with the Sentinelese made brief landings on the island every few years beginning in 1967. : 288 Portman visited the island several more times between January 1885 and January 1887. ![]() A search party landed on the island and left gifts before returning to Port Blair. : 288Ī second landing was made by Portman on 27 August 1883 after the eruption of Krakatoa was mistaken for gunfire and interpreted as the distress signal of a ship. "sickened rapidly, and the old man and his wife died, so the four children were sent back to their home with quantities of presents". ![]() The colonial officer in charge of the operation wrote that the entire group After several days, six Sentinelese, an elderly couple and four children, were taken to Port Blair. The group found a network of pathways and several small, abandoned villages. : 362–363 Portman's expeditions Īn expedition led by Maurice Vidal Portman, a government administrator who hoped to research the natives and their customs, landed on North Sentinel Island in January 1880. They were eventually found by a Royal Navy rescue party. The 106 surviving passengers and crewmen landed on the beach in the ship's boat and fended off attacks by the Sentinelese. Towards the end of the same year's summer monsoon season, Nineveh, an Indian merchant ship, was wrecked on a reef near the island. : 362–363 Homfray, an administrator, travelled to the island in March 1867. : 362–363 British visits īritish surveyor John Ritchie observed "a multitude of lights" from an East India Company hydrographic survey vessel, the Diligent, as it passed by the island in 1771. However, Onges brought to North Sentinel Island by the British during the 19th century could not understand the Sentinelese language, so a significant period of separation is likely. : 362–363 They also have strong cultural similarities with what little has been remotely observed amongst the Sentinelese. The Onge, one of the other indigenous peoples of the Andamans, were aware of North Sentinel Island's existence their traditional name for the island is Chia daaKwokweyeh. In 2006, islanders killed two fishermen whose boat had drifted ashore, and in 2018 an American Christian missionary, 26-year old John Chau, was killed after he attempted to make contact with the islanders three separate times and bribed local fishermen to transport him to the island. Such attacks have resulted in injury and death. The islanders have been observed shooting arrows at boats, as well as at low-flying helicopters. The Sentinelese have repeatedly attacked approaching vessels, whether the boats were intentionally visiting the island or simply ran aground on the surrounding coral reef. In November 2018, the government's home ministry stated that the relaxation of the prohibition on visitations was intended to allow researchers and anthropologists (with pre-approved clearance) to finally visit the Sentinel islands. In 2018, the Government of India excluded 29 islands – including North Sentinel – from the Restricted Area Permit (RAP) regime, in a major effort to boost tourism. In practice, Indian authorities recognise the islanders' desire to be left alone, restricting outsiders to remote monitoring (by boat and sometimes air) from a reasonably safe distance the Indian government will not prosecute the Sentinelese for killing people in the event that an outsider ventures ashore. Nominally, the island belongs to the South Andaman administrative district, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The area is patrolled by the Indian Navy. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Act of 1956 prohibits travel to the island, and any approach closer than 5 nautical miles (9.3 km), in order to protect the remaining tribal community from "mainland" infectious diseases against which they (likely) have no acquired immunity. It is home to the Sentinelese, an indigenous people in voluntary isolation who have defended, often by force, their protected isolation from the outside world. North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands, an Indian archipelago in the Bay of Bengal which also includes South Sentinel Island.
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