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A 24-year-old U.S. national, Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, was arrested for illegally entering the prohibited tribal reserve area of North Sentinel Island.
He allegedly planned the trip carefully, using GPS navigation and an inflatable boat to reach the island.
Upon arrival, he left offerings for the Sentinelese and collected sand samples.
Earlier he allegedly recorded footage of the Jarawa tribe from Baratang Islands.
North Sentinel Island
North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands, an Indian archipelago in the Bay of Bengal
The island is a protected area of India.
It is home to the Sentinelese, an indigenous tribe in voluntary isolation who have defended, often by force, their protected isolation from the outside world.
Nominally, the island belongs to the South Andaman administrative district, part of the Indian UT of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation 1956 prohibits travel to the island and any approach closer than five nautical miles (nine kilometres)
in order to protect the remaining tribal community from "mainland" infectious diseases against which they likely have no acquired immunity.
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