NEW DELHI, 30 December 2004 — Some primitive Indian tribes could be on the verge of extinction after a deadly tsunami slammed into the far-flung Andaman and Nicobar islands, experts say.
The remote cluster of more than 550 islands, of which only about three dozen are inhabited, is home to six tribes of Mongoloid and African origin who have lived there for thousands of years.
Many of these tribal people are semi-nomadic and subsist on hunting with spears, bows and arrows, and by fishing and gathering fruit and roots. They still cover themselves with tree bark or leaves.
“They are a vital link to our prehistoric past. If they are lost, India and the world lose a bit of their glorious heterogeneity,” said Ajoy Bagchi, executive director of the People’s Commission on Environment and Development, India, which has worked with tribal groups in the region for years.
“Even a small loss in any of these groups, barring the more numerous Nicobarese, could seriously endanger their survival. We need to immediately do a count on how many of them are alive.” Officials estimate the tsunami triggered by Sunday’s earthquake off Sumatra killed about 12,500 people in India. Nearly 10,000 people are estimated to have died in the Andaman and Nicobar chain of islands alone.
Authorities are still trying to reach many far-flung isles closer to Indonesia to assess the extent of the damage to the tribes in the archipelago. Around 30,000 of the more than 350,000 people in the island paradise are from tribal groups.
Anthropologists say their biggest concern was five tiny aboriginal tribes: The Great Andamanese, Sentinelese, Onge, Jarawa and the Shompen. Some like the Great Andamanese are already down to 30 people while others like the Shompen, who live in the southernmost island of Great Nicobar, number between 200-250.
Officials said they expect many casualties among the biggest tribal group in the region, the Nicobarese — with a population of close to 28,000 — who live in the southern islands.
