American man arrested for sailing to remote island and endangering local tribe with act that 'could have killed them all'

A US man has been arrested after he attempted to make contact with an isolated tribe on an island in India.

On Wednesday (April 2), police said that Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, 24, had been detained for attempting to enter a prohibited tribal reserve, The Independent reports.

Police said he'd reached Port Blair, the capital city of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, on March 27 with the intention to travel to North Sentinel Island on the Bay of Bengal, where he reportedly took a boat to, but was arrested on Sunday (March 30).

North Sentinel Island is home to the Sentinelese tribe, one of the most isolated tribes in the world.

Traveling to North Sentinel Island was banned by the Indian government in 1956, with the island being labelled a tribal reserve from that year onwards.

Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov tried to visit a tribe (Getty Images / Maxar / Contributor)

The Sentinelese have also made it clear that they do not want anything to do with people of the modern world, but that doesn't mean people haven't tried, with one notable individual being American missionary, John Allen Chau, who was killed on the island when he attempted to convert the tribe to Christianity in 2018.

According to The Times, when Polyakov was arrested in India, he told police that he left Khurmadera Beach, about 19 miles from the capital at 1am on March 29, and reached the northeastern shore of North Sentinel island at around 10am.

From there, he watched the beach from the boat using binoculars in a bid to see anyone from the tribe.

However, when he realized he wouldn’t see anyone, he waded out to the beach, left his gifts - cans of Diet Coke and coconuts - on the sand and waited for someone to appear.

When nobody came out, he shot a video, hopped back on his boat, where he sat for an hour as he blew a whistle to get their attention, before returning to Khurmadera.

That’s when local fishermen reported him to the police and he was apprehended. Polyakov has since been charged with entering a prohibited zone.

The Sentinelese tribe have been largely uncontacted (Survival International)

The Independent reports that this was Polyakov's third time visiting the island after two previous attempts, with the police telling Press Trust of India: "We are getting more details about him and his intention to visit the reserved tribal area. We are also trying to find out where else he has visited during his stay in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands."

As well as general hostility, the Sentinelese people are also highly vulnerable to modern diseases as they’ve never been exposed to them and therefore, have zero immunity to fight any infections that would carried by outsiders.

Caroline Pearce, director of the charity which protects vulnerable tribes, Survival International, dubbed Polyakov’s attempt as ‘deeply disturbing’.

She said in a statement (via The Times): “It beggars belief that someone could be that reckless and idiotic. This person’s actions not only endangered his own life, they put the lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk.”