A 24 year-old American Youtuber was arrested by the Indian police for illegally visiting an island in the Indian Ocean to leave a Diet Coke and a coconut as an offering for the isolated tribe with a history for attacking intruders.
Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, from Scottsdale, Arizona, is set to appear in court in mid-April for attempting to contact the tribe on North Sentinel Island labeled as off-limits by the Indian government, and may face up to five years of jail time, plus a fine.
North Sentinel Island has been isolated for thousands of years, they hunt the small animals that live there for food, and are known to kill outsiders who end up on their beaches. No one can go within 3 miles (5 kilometers) of the island, or else face arrest by Indian authorities upon return to the mainland.
A Christian missionary tried to visit the island in 2008, and the North Sentinelese shot him with arrows, and buried his body on the beach. They also killed two fishermen who landed accidentally on their beaches.
Although scientists occasionally visit the islands to drop off gifts of bananas and coconuts, no one else is allowed near the island and the waters near it are carefully controlled for the Sentinelese and the general public’s safety.
According to police, Polyakov very deliberately disobeyed this mandate, scouting out the beach first with binoculars and then approaching the island. Allegedly, he also had meticulous knowledge of the wind and tides in advance of his trip. According to Senior Police Officer Hargobinder Singh Dhaliwal, Polyakov “planned meticulously over several days to visit the island and make a contact with the Sentinel tribe.”
On the beach, he blew a whistle to try to attract the attention of the Sentinelese, but received no response. Before leaving, he left a Diet Coke can and a coconut on the beach, recorded a video, and took some sand samples.
After leaving, fishermen spotted Polyakov and tipped off to the police that he’d illegally visited the island, leading to him being arrested in Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, the archipelago that North Sentinel Island is a part of.
Upon further investigation, police learned that Polyakov had made previous attempts to visit the island in the past year. According to police, Polyakov was drawn to the island by his affinity for difficult challenges, along with the mystery that surrounds the people that live there.
The Sentinelese have been disconnected from the modern world for a long time, and remain self-sufficient and independent. This isolation is self-imposed and has kept the Sentinelese safe from unwanted contact with any outsiders.
“The Sentinelese have made their wish to avoid outsiders incredibly clear over the years,” the director for Survival International, Caroline Pearce, said.
Survival International is an organization that fights for the rights of indigenous peoples. Pearce called the attempt “reckless and idiotic,” citing the possibility of Polyakov passing a modern disease off to the peoples of the island.
“This person’s actions not only endangered his own life, they put the lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk,” Pearce said.
