Indian police reinforcements yesterday took up positions near an island where isolated tribal hunters killed a US missionary, although no effort was to be made to recover his body, officials said.
Hampered by restrictions on going to North Sentinel and the hostility of the Sentinelese people, Indian authorities are counting on the expertise of anthropologists and tribal welfare specialists to access the remains of 27-year-old John Allen Chau.
Chau was last week killed by arrows fired by the Sentinelese hunter-gatherers after he illegally went ashore in an apparent attempt to convert the tribe to Christianity.
Indian police have used a helicopter and a ship to get close to the protected island, but failed to spot Chau’s body or identify the place where he was killed.
“To make the picture better and clearer, another police team is being sent to the North Sentinel island waters,” Andaman Islands Police Chief Dependra Pathak told reporters.
Seven people, including six fishermen, have been arrested for leading Chau to North Sentinel. Police hope the fishermen can give more clues to the place where he was slain.
“Police have obtained seven days’ custody for three of the accused,” Pathak said.
“They will be interrogated on various aspects of the case, including the sequence of events, the sea route followed for the island, the location where the victim landed, the place of incidence and location where Chau was last seen,” he added.
Foreigners and Indians are banned from going within 5km of the island to protect the Sentinelese, believed to number about 150, from outside disease.
While a murder case has been registered, experts have discounted any possibility of action against the tribe for the death.
Indian authorities have said that Chau paid the fishermen to take him as close to the island as possible and then took his own kayak to North Sentinel.
“It will also be ascertained whether the victim had taken the help of these fishermen or others to venture to the island on an earlier occasion,” Pathak said.
Police would also take a new look at Chau’s personal journal, in which he expressed fears that he might be killed, Pathak added.
“My name is John. I love you and Jesus loves you... Here is some fish,” Pathak quoted Chau as telling the tribe after arriving.
Fishermen saw the tribe burying his body on the beach the following day, another missionary wrote in an e-mail to the Chau’s mother, the Washington Post reported.
Recovering the body could take days, if it happens at all, as Indian authorities insist they cannot disturb the tribe or their habitat in the highly sensitive zone.
The few photographs that exist of the Sentinelese show them all but naked carrying spears, bows and arrows.
The tribe reportedly killed two fishermen whose boat drifted onto the island in 2006. They also fired arrows at a helicopter checking for damage after a devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS