The Slatest

Amazonian Tribe Makes Contact With Outsiders for First Time

Amazon rainforest trees stand as seen from a transport riverboat.

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

Per Brazilian officials, a previously isolated Amazonian tribe has made its first contact with the outside world, interacting on June 29 with a government team that included medical personnel and an anthropologist specializing in indigenous groups. The unidentified tribe may have crossed from Peru to Brazil to flee loggers and/or drug traffickers, and its presence was apparently communicated to the Brazilian government by Ashaninka Indians who had seen signs that another group was nearby.

Officials and advocates are concerned about the isolated tribe’s vulnerability to disease, as they stand risk of being exposed to contagions they haven’t developed immunity to.