Following a confrontation with a “uncontacted” tribe, two persons are reported to have died and two more to have been injured.
It is believed that the Mashco Piro tribe, residing in Peru’s Manú National Park, is the world’s biggest uncontacted tribe.
As of present, the tribe is estimated to have 750 individuals, all of whom have no communication with anyone outside of the enormous group.
In July, the Federación Nativa del Río Madre de Dios y Afluentes (FENAMAD), an organization that represents 39 Indigenous communities in the Cusco and Madre de Dios areas, disclosed that an alarming incident had occurred.
According to reports, the tribe attacked loggers outside of their land, inflicting injuries on one of them.
Since then, tensions have risen further to the point where the tribe has fatally shot two logging workers.
A FENAMAD spokesman, Daniel Pena, told Reuters that the attack happened on Thursday, August 29, in the Madre de Dios region.
Workers had reportedly been opening a trail in the forest when the Mashco Piro tribe launched their attack.
Two workers have reportedly been hurt and are missing, and at least two more have died.
According to the Guardian, the incident happened just one day before the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) halted a logging company’s certification to operate in close proximity to the tribe for a period of eight months.
Vice-president of FENAMAD, Eusebio Ríos, said: “There are people wounded, dead, missing – we don’t know what’s happening or what has happened.
“FENAMAD has been demanding for a long time that this territory be properly protected for uncontacted peoples.”
Meanwhile Caroline Pearce, executive director of Survival International, a human rights organization campaigning for Indigenous people, said in a statement: “This is a tragedy that was entirely avoidable. The Peruvian authorities have known for years that this area that they chose to sell off for logging was actually the Mashco Piro’s territory.
“By facilitating the logging and destruction of this rainforest they’re not only endangering the very survival of the Mashco Piro people, who are incredibly vulnerable to epidemics of disease brought in by outsiders, but they’ve knowingly put the lives of the logging workers in danger.”
Survival International previously called for ‘all the logging licenses in the Mashco Piro territory to be revoked’ after the incident in July in which a logger was injured.
The incident from last week is still being looked into, and the Peruvian government will probably come under more and more pressure to take action.
