YouTuber defends giving Coke to uncontacted tribe which could have wiped them out
American vlogger Mykhailo Viktorovych has defended himself after being slammed over leaving the fizzy drink for an uncontacted Indian Ocean tribe as an “offering” for social media content.
The YouTuber was arrested for heading to the island(Image: Jam Press/TIM)
A YouTuber has defended his decision to handing a previously uncontacted tribe a can of Coke. American vlogger Mykhailo Viktorovych has defended himself after being slammed over leaving the fizzy drink for an uncontacted Indian Ocean tribe as an “offering” for social media content.
The 25-year-old has been told he could have put the tribe at risk of being completely wiped out with his stunt, which he carried out in March last year. Police arrested the content creator after he stepped onto the prohibited territory of North Sentinel Island, spending an hour on the island and blowing a whistle to get attention.
He wanted to meet people from the solitary Sentinelese tribe in the remote spot which is part of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an archipelago nearly 750 miles east of India’s mainland.
He said he wanted to “say hello” and left the “offering” of the can of drink after failing to make contact with the isolated group. The star filmed the entire stunt for his YouTube channel but had no response from the tribe. He then left the can of diet coke and a coconut.
Viktorovych uploaded the previously unseen footage on Friday, showing the stunt, saying that he wanted to see the tribe and “say hello”, as well as offer them a Coke to “transport them thousands of years into the future.”
Titled: “The Last Island Part 2”, the video shows the stunt in full and has given him lots of mixed reviews. Speaking after he said he was not at risk as he was “vaccinated against the flu and measles”. I never intended to come into direct contact with them,” he told a Dutch newspaper.
“And as far as I know, you can’t catch diseases simply by looking at each other. I am receiving a lot of reactions, both positive and negative. I am open to that – a lively debate is healthy,” he added. “I wanted to give them a gift that is representative of our civilisation. But I have no illusions about what people think of me. Everyone is free to think what they want.”
Friday’s upload was part of a series Polyakov has produced, with the third video set to be added. When he returned from the prohibited island Polyakov was spotted by local fishermen, who reported him to police.
He was later arrested in Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and charged with violating Indian laws banning anyone from interacting with the isolated islanders.
A court in Port Blair rejected his application for bail in April, extending his judicial custody. The YouTuber was charged with entering a prohibited tribal reserve area and violating Indian laws regarding outsider interaction with the tribe.
Visitors are banned from travelling within three miles of the island under laws protecting the tribe, who have remained separate from the rest of the world for thousands of years.
Inhabitants use spears, bows and arrows to hunt animals that roam the small, heavily forested island. They are known to be deeply suspicious of outsiders and attack anyone who lands on their beaches.
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