Sentinelese In Spotlight After US National's Arrest? Why You Can't Visit North Sentinel Island
A 24-year-old US national, Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, was arrested for entering North Sentinel Island to befriend the hostile indigenous Sentinelese tribe
A 24-year-old US national was arrested in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for allegedly entering the restricted North Sentinel Island without authorisation in an attempt to befriend the indigenous Sentinelese people.
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Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov was arrested by the CID on March 31 for allegedly entering the restricted island without authorization. He had arrived in Port Blair on March 26.
In 2018, American missionary John Chau was killed after attempting to contact the Sentinelese, considered the world’s last pre-Neolithic tribe.
Who Are Sentinelese?
The Sentinelese are an indigenous, uncontacted tribe residing on North Sentinel Island in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago of India. They are considered one of the world’s last isolated communities, having fiercely resisted outside contact for centuries. Their exact population remains unknown, estimated to be between 50 and 200 individuals. The tribe’s language, customs, laws, and religious beliefs are a mystery to the outside world, as no outsider has ever established sustained communication with them.
Living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, the Sentinelese rely on fishing, hunting, and foraging, using bows and arrows for hunting and spearing fish in the island’s lagoons. They travel in dugout canoes and are known to react aggressively to intruders, often greeting outsiders with arrows. Historic attempts to establish contact—including those by British colonisers, Indian government expeditions, and anthropologists—have largely failed, with the Sentinelese either retreating into the dense jungle or responding with hostility.
Despite occasional attempts at peaceful outreach, the Indian government has since declared North Sentinel Island off-limits to outsiders, recognising the Sentinelese’s right to remain undisturbed. Their continued isolation makes them one of the most enigmatic and protected indigenous groups in the world.
Why You Can’t Visit North Sentinel Island
Despite numerous failed attempts, two encounters in the early 1990s stand out when the Sentinelese accepted coconuts from a team that included anthropologists from the Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI). This group, led by Triloknath Pandit (commonly known as T N Pandit), the then director of the AnSI, included Madhumala Chattopadhyay, the first female anthropologist to establish contact with the Sentinelese. However, these meetings did not result in any significant progress or educational insights.
Indian anthropologist Madhumala Chattopadhyaya on North Sentinel Island in 1991, during which coconuts were distributed to the island’s inhabitants in the only known friendly encounter between North Sentinelese and outsiders. pic.twitter.com/ma3vyB4kMk— Historyland (@HistorylandHQ) March 10, 2025
The Sentinelese have valid reasons for rejecting contact attempts. In 1880, Maurice Vidal Portman, a British naval officer, tried to ‘civilise’ them by kidnapping six islanders and taking them to Port Blair. Lacking immunity to modern diseases, they soon fell ill, and two of them died. The remaining four, who were children, were sent back with gifts and possibly more diseases. Portman is largely responsible for the tribe’s enduring hostility towards outsiders.
In 1997, all outside contact and visits to North Sentinel Island were officially prohibited.
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