A daredevil YouTube influencer has been arrested after visiting a remote Indian island, where he tried to make illegal contact with indigenous people, according to global reports.
Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, 24, of Arizona, allegedly traveled to the restricted North Sentinel Island, where he tried to offer a coconut and can of Diet Coke as “offerings for the Sentinelese,” The Andaman Chronicle and The Washington Post reported, citing local police.
Police in Andaman and Nicobar Islands reportedly said he visited the region because of “his passion for adventure and his desire to undertake extreme challenges,” police said. It was apparently his third time trying to make the trip, according to The Post.
Polyakov was also apparently wearing a GoPro portable camera, showing him entering the island’s shore “claiming unofficial representation of the U.S.,” police said in a statement.
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He stayed on the island for about five minutes, collecting samples and recording video footage, but reportedly did not make contact with any indigenous people. He then remained offshore in a boat for about an hour before local fisherman saw him and contacted authorities, The Post and the Chronicle reported.
Polyakov, who goes by Neo-Orientalist on YouTube, has a six-part video series showing his travels through “Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.”
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Contact with the Sentinelese people is strictly prohibited due to their protected indigenous way of life, the Chronicle reported.
“We are getting more details about him and his intention to visit the reserved tribal area. We are also trying to find where else he had visited during his stay in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. We are questioning the hotel staff where he was staying in Port Blair,” Hargobinder Singh Dhaliwal, director general of police of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, said in a statement to the Chronicle.
Caroline Pearce, director of Survival International, a nonprofit seeking to help indigenous and tribal societies around the world, called Polyakov’s actions “deeply disturbing” and noted the death of an American missionary who attempted to make contact with people on the island in 2018.
“The Sentinelese have made their wish to avoid outsiders incredibly clear over the years – I’m sure many remember the 2018 incident in which an American missionary, John Allen Chau, was killed by them after landing on their island to try to convert them to Christianity,” Pearce said in a statement. “It’s good news that the man in this latest incident has been arrested, but deeply disturbing that he was reportedly able to get onto the island in the first place”
Pearce added that uncontacted indigenous peoples across the globe “are experiencing the invasion of their lands on a shocking scale.”
“Countless uncontacted peoples in the Amazon are being invaded by loggers and gold-miners. The uncontacted Shompen of Great Nicobar Island, not far from North Sentinel, will be wiped out if India goes ahead with its plan to transform their island into ‘the Hong Kong of India,’” Pearce continued. “The common factor in all these cases is governments’ refusal to abide by international law and recognize and protect uncontacted peoples’ territories.”
Polyakov is currently in judicial custody and has a hearing scheduled for April 17, The Post reported.
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