Peru evacuates village after attack by local tribe

PUERTO MALDONADO , Peru, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- A remote Peruvian town was evacuated after it was raided by an indigenous tribe which typically lives in nearby isolation.

Authorities sent boats up the Amazon River to rescue the residents of Monte Salvador, near Peru's border with Brazil, to protect them from the Mashco-Piro aboriginal tribe, who attacked the community in search of food last week.

Patricia Balbuena, Peruvian vice minister of intercultural affairs, told the British newspaper The Guardian how 200 Mascho-Piro, seeking food, came firing bows and arrows and left Monte Salvador with machetes, rope, blankets and food after ransacking homes. Farm animals were also killed, although no townspeople were injured.

About 15,000 members of "uncontacted tribes" are believed to live in the Peru's Amazon area in self-isolation, and contact with them could lead them to contract common illnesses for which they have no natural defenses. While they occasionally visit settlements in search of food, a raid such as that of last week are rare.

"Normally what happens is family groups arrive and ask for tools and food then they leave," Lorena Prieto said, director of Peru's Office of peoples in Isolation and initial Contact told the newspaper, "but this time the attitude was different. This time it was just men, who were armed with bows and arrows, far outnumbering the villagers. They shot arrows, and they sacked the whole village, they smashed windows, tore up clothing and killed all the domestic animals."

Balbuna suggested a sudden drop in the temperature of the Amazon River, due to climate change, may have been the reason for the raid. He dismissed a suggestion the tribe was threatened by illegal area loggers or drug traffickers, saying no "illicit activity" has been observed in the Mashco-Piro's indigenous reserve.