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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a small open space deep in the Peruvian jungle when he noticed sounds drawing near through the dense jungle.

He became aware that he stood hemmed in, and froze.

“One positioned, directing using an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “And somehow he detected that I was present and I commenced to run.”

He ended up encountering the Mashco Piro tribe. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a neighbor to these wandering individuals, who shun engagement with outsiders.

A new report by a human rights group states remain a minimum of 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” left in the world. The group is thought to be the most numerous. It claims half of these communities might be wiped out over the coming ten years should administrations fail to take additional to protect them.

The report asserts the most significant threats are from logging, mining or operations for oil. Remote communities are exceptionally at risk to common illness—therefore, the report states a risk is posed by interaction with evangelical missionaries and social media influencers in pursuit of clicks.

In recent times, members of the tribe have been appearing to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to residents.

This settlement is a angling hamlet of a handful of clans, located high on the shores of the Tauhamanu waterway in the heart of the Peruvian rainforest, 10 hours from the most accessible town by watercraft.

The area is not recognised as a safeguarded zone for remote communities, and deforestation operations work here.

Tomas reports that, on occasion, the racket of industrial tools can be noticed around the clock, and the community are seeing their forest damaged and devastated.

Within the village, residents say they are torn. They dread the tribal weapons but they hold strong regard for their “kin” residing in the woodland and desire to safeguard them.

“Let them live as they live, we must not change their way of life. This is why we maintain our space,” says Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the damage to the tribe's survival, the risk of conflict and the possibility that deforestation crews might subject the community to sicknesses they have no resistance to.

During a visit in the village, the tribe made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a woman with a young daughter, was in the forest picking produce when she detected them.

“There were shouting, sounds from others, many of them. As though there were a whole group yelling,” she shared with us.

That was the first instance she had come across the Mashco Piro and she ran. Subsequently, her head was continually pounding from fear.

“Because exist loggers and firms destroying the forest they are fleeing, perhaps because of dread and they end up in proximity to us,” she said. “It is unclear how they might react to us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

Recently, two individuals were confronted by the tribe while angling. One was struck by an bow to the stomach. He recovered, but the other person was located lifeless subsequently with several puncture marks in his body.

The Peruvian government has a strategy of no engagement with isolated people, making it illegal to commence interactions with them.

The policy originated in a nearby nation after decades of advocacy by indigenous rights groups, who noted that early exposure with secluded communities resulted to entire communities being wiped out by disease, destitution and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau community in Peru first encountered with the outside world, half of their community died within a few years. A decade later, the Muruhanua people faced the identical outcome.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very at risk—epidemiologically, any interaction might introduce diseases, and even the simplest ones may eliminate them,” explains an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any exposure or interference could be extremely detrimental to their existence and health as a society.”

For local residents of {