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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a tiny glade deep in the Peruvian rainforest when he heard sounds approaching through the thick forest.

He became aware he was encircled, and stood still.

“One stood, pointing with an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “Unexpectedly he became aware of my presence and I started to flee.”

He had come face to face the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—residing in the small village of Nueva Oceania—was almost a local to these nomadic people, who shun engagement with foreigners.

An updated report by a rights group indicates remain no fewer than 196 termed “isolated tribes” in existence worldwide. The Mashco Piro is thought to be the largest. It claims half of these communities might be eliminated over the coming ten years unless authorities neglect to implement more measures to safeguard them.

It claims the most significant dangers come from logging, extraction or exploration for oil. Isolated tribes are extremely susceptible to ordinary illness—consequently, the study states a threat is caused by interaction with proselytizers and social media influencers looking for clicks.

Recently, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, according to locals.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's hamlet of several families, sitting high on the banks of the Tauhamanu River in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, 10 hours from the closest village by canoe.

The territory is not classified as a protected zone for remote communities, and deforestation operations work here.

Tomas says that, at times, the racket of logging machinery can be detected day and night, and the community are observing their jungle damaged and devastated.

In Nueva Oceania, inhabitants state they are divided. They dread the projectiles but they also possess profound regard for their “brothers” who live in the jungle and desire to protect them.

“Let them live in their own way, we are unable to alter their traditions. This is why we preserve our separation,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are worried about the destruction to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the threat of violence and the likelihood that loggers might introduce the tribe to illnesses they have no resistance to.

During a visit in the settlement, the group made their presence felt again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a young mother with a toddler child, was in the jungle collecting food when she heard them.

“We heard calls, cries from others, many of them. As though there was a crowd yelling,” she told us.

That was the first time she had encountered the group and she ran. Subsequently, her thoughts was continually throbbing from anxiety.

“As exist loggers and companies destroying the forest they are escaping, perhaps due to terror and they come close to us,” she stated. “We are uncertain how they might react with us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

Recently, two individuals were attacked by the Mashco Piro while fishing. A single person was wounded by an arrow to the gut. He lived, but the other person was located deceased subsequently with several puncture marks in his frame.

The Peruvian government maintains a policy of avoiding interaction with secluded communities, making it prohibited to start interactions with them.

The policy was first adopted in a nearby nation subsequent to prolonged of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who noted that first exposure with remote tribes resulted to entire communities being eliminated by disease, destitution and starvation.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country made initial contact with the broader society, half of their people perished within a matter of years. A decade later, the Muruhanua people suffered the identical outcome.

“Secluded communities are extremely susceptible—epidemiologically, any interaction could introduce illnesses, and including the most common illnesses might wipe them out,” states a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any exposure or intrusion can be very harmful to their existence and well-being as a group.”

For local residents of {