24 Dec 2014

Tribe raids remote Peru village

8:13 pm on 24 December 2014

Authorities in Peru have decided to evacuate a remote Amazon community after it was raided by members of an indigenous tribe.

It is thought the Mashco-Piro tribe had not been spotted by outsiders before August 2011

It is thought the Mashco-Piro tribe had not been spotted by outsiders before August 2011. Photo: AFP

About 200 Mashco-Piro Indians armed with bows and arrows arrived at Monte Salvador looking for food, the BBC reported.

They were said to have killed domestic animals and taken cooking pots and other metal goods.

No-one was injured, but police said it was safer for villagers to move to a bigger town.

This was the third time this year that the Mashco-Piro Indians have arrived in Monte Salvador searching for food and metal objects.

But last Thursday they came while most of the villagers were away and ransacked their homes before retreating into the forest.

The villagers said they also killed some of their animals.

Two days later, the Mashco-Piro Indians returned and the villagers fled.

The Peruvian police are sending boats to take them to Puerto Maldonado, a busy town in south-eastern Peru near the borders with Bolivia and Brazil.

A local indigenous organisation (Fenamed) has asked the government to protect the Mashco-Piro's land, much of which has been taken over by logging concessions and drug-traffickers.