A remote island tribe known for killing outsiders on sight could be at risk of being wiped out as India prepares to carry out its first national census in over a decade, experts claim.
The Sentinelese people of North Sentinel Island, considered the most isolated tribe on Earth, have long resisted contact with the outside world.
But now officials are facing the dilemma of counting those who reside on the island without sparking violence or exposing the tribe to diseases they have no immunity to.
Experts have warned that even attempting to tally the population of the world's most reclusive tribe could end in bloodshed or spark a humanitarian catastrophe.
In 2006, two Indian fishermen paid with their lives after their boat accidentally drifted too close to the island which is protected by India. According to witnesses on a nearby fishing boat, the two men were brutally hacked to death with axes.
