YouTuber who tried to give isolated tribe can of Diet Coke denied bail as he faces brutal prison sentence
By now, it's been well-documented that North Sentinel Island is off-limits to the general public. Often making it onto lists of places that we'll never be allowed to visit, the Indian government stopped visits there in 1997. Although the rules on the Sentinel Islands were slightly relaxed in 2018 to allow researchers and anthropologists with pre-approved clearance to visit the area, North Sentinel Island and its isolated tribe are still being left in peace.
If only YouTuber Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov had gotten that memo. It's still illegal to visit North Sentinel Island, and as well as trying to protect the Sentinelese tribe from diseases and infections, there have been several reports of hostility from them toward outsiders. There have been at least three deaths linked to people trying to visit there, with two fishermen being killed in 2006 and a 26-year-old American Christian missionary, John Allen Chau, in 2018. Chau's story was even immortalized in a 2023 documentary film called The Mission.
Polyakov is known for posting videos on his Neo-Orientalist channel, with his first six uploads documenting his visit to Afghanistan.
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We previously reported how Polyakov was arrested on March 31 after he illegally snuck onto North Sentinel Island on March 29. Although it's not thought he made direct contact with the Sentinelese, it's said he left a coconut and a can of Diet Coke for the tribe. He also apparently took samples of sand and filmed the experience on his GoPro.
PTI news agency (via The Independent) has given an update, explaining that a Port Blair court has denied Polyakov’s bail application and has extended his time in custody.
Official news reports say Polyakov has been charged with "entering a prohibited tribal reserve area of the North Sentinel Island, protected under the Andaman & Nicobar Islands Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation 1956," and now, he could face up to five years in prison.
Numbers on the Sentinelese are scarce, and while it could be up to 400, The Independent claims only 150 of them remain on North Sentinel Island.
Polyakov is accused of planning the whole thing, studying sea conditions, tides, and accessibility, before sailing for nine hours in a rubber dinghy.
Senior police officer Hargobinder Singh Dhaliwal said, "He planned meticulously over several days to visit the island and make contact with the tribe," with a statement reiterating how his "actions posed a serious threat to the safety and wellbeing of the Sentinelese people, whose contact with outsiders is strictly prohibited by the law to protect their indigenous way of life."
Caroline Pearce, director of Survival International, referred to the 'deeply disturbing' incident and added: "It beggars belief that someone could be that reckless and idiotic. This person’s actions not only endangered his own life, they put the lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk.
"It is very well known by now that uncontacted peoples have no immunity to common outside diseases like flu or measles, which could completely wipe them out."
As well as Polyakov waiting to find out if he'll spend the next five years behind bars, there's been a recent run of YouTubers facing long stints in jail. Vitaly Zdorovetskiy is currently locked up in the Philippines for a list of charges that includes 'unjust vexation', theft, and publicly harassing bystanders.