Police in India say that they have mapped the area where members of a remote tribe buried the body of US Christian missionary John Chau, although at this point, the prospect of any kind of recovery mission remains doubtful.
Dependra Pathak, the director general of police in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, said that officers took a boat in order to survey the area around North Sentinel Island on Friday, from a distance of around 500 metres.
He said that they observed several islanders in the area and studied their behaviour over a number of hours, and that based on this, they have “more or less identified” the burial site and the general area in which it is situated.
Friday’s mission was the second boat expedition to North Sentinel in recent days, after a team of police, forestry department officials, tribal welfare experts and coast guard personnel surveyed the area, along with several of the individuals who initially took Chau to the area.
It is understood that young Kansas man John Chau was killed after approaching the island in a kayak in an attempt to preach the word of God to one of the world’s oldest and most isolated tribes, which is traditionally hostile to outsiders.
Local authorities believe he was shot by arrows and then buried on the beach, with fishermen saying that they observed members of the tribe dragging and burying his body on November 17.
Some in the anthropology community have said it would be a futile exercise to try and retrieve Chau’s body, among them tribal rights expert and author Pankaj Sekhsaria, who has written on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands area in the past.
Speaking to the Straits Times, he said that there is no safe way to retrieve the body without putting both the Sentinelese and the rescuers at risk, and that to try and do so would only lead to “conflict and hostility” with the locals.
Seven people have been arrested for helping John Chau get close to the island, but in a post to his Instagram, his family members have called for their release, saying that he was ventured out of his own free will and that others should not be persecuted for his actions.
