North Sentinel Island

Epic card · No. 3838

North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands, an Indian archipelago in the Bay of Bengal. A protected area of India, it is home to the Sentinelese, an uncontacted indigenous tribe who have defended—often with violence—their protected isolation from the outside world. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation 1956 prohibits travel to the island and any approach closer than five kilometres (three miles), in order to protect the remaining tribal community from "mainland" infectious diseases against which they likely have no acquired immunity. The area is patrolled by the Indian Navy. Nominally, the island belongs to the South Andaman administrative district, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. 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 Government of India will not prosecute...

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