NOS news•today, 09:16
Peru has evacuated elderly people, women and children from an indigenous village in the Amazon to protect them from members of the isolated Mashco Piro people who live in the rainforest.
The small town of Monte Salvado is near the Las Piedras river. On Saturday, a man who was sailing on that river was shot with arrows by members of the people of Mashco Piro. The victim was an employee of an advocacy group for indigenous people.
An arrow wounded him in the shoulder. As the arrow may have been poisonous, he was taken to hospital by helicopter yesterday. His condition is said to remain critical.
The Peruvian newspaper Republic writing that Monte Salvado had been attacked by Mashco Piro three times before. Residents who did not leave will be protected in case they do so again.
Indigenous peoples’ advocacy group Survival International said in August The Keeper that attacks by these people are linked to legal and illegal logging. Members of the same people then attacked a group of woodcutters with bows and arrows, at least one person was injured.
That attack took place in an area that the government considers Mashco Prio’s habitat, but which has not yet been declared a protected area where logging is not allowed.
But Peru wants to protect isolated indigenous groups and their habitat from contact with the outside world, because these people have no immunity against infectious diseases in modern Peru.
Warning
“We have always warned about this,” an unaffiliated Peruvian group for indigenous groups told a British newspaper at the time. “Illegal logging and drug smugglers are invading the land.” And spreading to other areas The Mashco Piro is in danger of extinction.
It is not clear how many members there are in this country. Survival International says there are “more than 750” and that they are the largest uncontacted people in the world. Members of the group first appeared in 2012.
2024-10-28 08:16:00
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