New report: Indian government plans spell disaster for uncontacted island tribe
April 15, 2025
One of the world’s most isolated tribes will be wiped out if the Indian government presses ahead with a mega-development project on their island, according to a new report published today.
The report “Crushed: How India plans to sacrifice one of the world’s most isolated tribes to create “the new Hong Kong”” is published by Survival International.
It warns that uncontacted Shompen people, who live only on Great Nicobar Island in the Indian Ocean, will not survive if the Great Nicobar Development Project goes ahead.
The project includes plans to build a mega-port, defense base, power station and new city of 650,000 people, and bring in around a million tourists and other visitors to the small island each year.
Survival International said today that it is sending the report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, UN Special Rapporteurs, and other UN officials, and urging them to call for the project to be scrapped.
Thirty-nine leading genocide scholars wrote to the Indian government in February 2024, warning that the project would wipe out the Shompen if it went ahead.
Around 300 Shompen people live in the lush rainforests of the island’s interior, the majority of whom are uncontacted. Great Nicobar is part of the same island chain that is home to the uncontacted Sentinelese people, where an American influencer was arrested this month for trying to contact the tribe.
Survival International Director Caroline Pearce said today: “It’s appalling that the authorities in India are pressing ahead with this project that will wipe out the Shompen, one of the world’s most isolated tribes. While they’re prosecuting someone for going to the island of the Sentinelese, they cannot justify building a city of 650,000 people on the island of their uncontacted neighbors the Shompen.
“This project would seem absurd if it weren’t so deadly. The Shompen have the right to survive, and just want to be left in peace. The government must allow them to do so by scrapping this project, rather than pressing ahead and condemning the Shompen to annihilation.”
