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The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
Sunday, November 25, 2018 5C
Indian police map area of remote
island where US man was killed
US soldier
killed in
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BY ASHOK SHARMA
Associated Press
NEW DELHI — Police said Saturday
that they have mapped the area of a remote
Indian island where tribespeople were seen
burying the body of an American adventurer
and Christian missionary after allegedly kill
ing him with arrows this month.
During their visit to the island’s surround
ings on Friday, investigators also spotted
four or five North Sentinel islanders moving
in the area from a distance of about 1,600
feet from a boat and studied their behavior
for several hours, said Dependra Pathak, the
director-general of police of the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands, where North Sentinel
is located.
“We have more or less identified the site
and the area in general,” Pathak said by
phone.
Indian authorities have been struggling
to figure out how to recover the body of
26-year-old John Allen Chau, who was killed
by North Sentinel islanders who apparently
shot him with arrows and then buried his
body on the beach.
Friday’s visit was the second boat expe
dition of the week by a team of police and
officials from the forest department, tribal
welfare department and coast guard, Pathak
said.
The officials took two of the seven people
arrested for helping Chau get close to the
island in an effort to determine his route and
the circumstances of his death. The fisher
men who had taken Chau to the shore saw
the tribespeople dragging and burying his
body on the morning of Nov. 17.
Pathak said investigators have asked
experts to give them “the nuances of the
group’s conduct and behavior, particularly
in this kind of violent behavior,” before they
attempt to recover the body.
Officials typically don’t travel to the North
Sentinel area, where people live as their
ancestors did thousands of years ago. The
only contacts, occasional “gift giving” visits
in which bananas and coconuts were passed
by small teams of officials and scholars who
remained in the surf, were years ago.
Indian ships monitor the waters around
the island, trying to ensure that outsiders do
not go near the Sentinelese, who have repeat
edly made clear they want to be left alone.
Chau went to “share the love of Jesus,”
said Mary Ho, international executive leader
of All Nations. All Nations, a Kansas City,
Missouri-based organization, helped train
Chau, discussed the risks with him and sent
him on the mission, to support him in his
“life’s calling,” she added.
“He wanted to have a long-term relation
ship, and if possible, to be accepted by them
and live amongst them,” she said.
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Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL — The U.S. military said Satur
day that a service member has been killed
in Afghanistan, while in a separate incident
two Afghan soldiers died when their heli
copter failed to land properly.
The brief U.S. military statement did not
provide further details on the soldier’s iden
tity or the time or place of death.
The two Afghan soldiers died Saturday
when their helicopter made an “emergency
landing” in the southern Kandahar prov
ince due to a technical problem, Defense
Ministry spokesman Ghafor Ahmad Jawad
said. He said two other soldiers were
wounded when the helicopter caught fire
after landing. The Taliban claim to have
shot the helicopter down.
In the capital, Kabul, a senior religious
scholar was shot and killed, said Basir Muja-
hid, a spokesman for the capital’s police
chief. No one immediately claimed the
killing of Abdul Basir Haqqani, but police
arrested a man with a pistol near the scene
of the shooting, Mujahid said.
Also Saturday, the Islamic States group
in statement posted on its Aamaq website
claimed responsibility for the suicide attack
on Friday inside an army base in eastern
Khost province which killed at least 27
army soldiers.
“The attack was carried out by a sui
cide bomber who detonated his explosive
vest among them (army soldiers),” the IS
statement said, without mentioned that
the attack occurred inside a mosque at the
base.
The attack came just days after a sui
cide bomber killed 55 religious scholars
gathered in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to
celebrate the holiday marking the birth of
Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. The Taliban
denied involvement in that bombing, which
also wounded 94 people.
The U.S. and NATO formally concluded
their combat mission in 2014, but still pro
vide vital support to Afghan security forces,
who have been struggling in recent years to
combat a resurgent Taliban and an Islamic
State affiliate. Some 15,000 U.S. soldiers are
currently serving in Afghanistan.
International forces have also suffered
from so-called insider attacks in recent
months, in which Afghan soldiers or police
have opened fire on them.
SARAH PRINCE I Associated Press
Adventurer John Allen Chau, right, stands for a photograph with Founder of Ubuntu
Football Academy Casey Prince, 39, in Cape Town, South Africa, in October, days before
he left for in a remote Indian island of North Sentinel Island, where he was killed.
When a young boy tried to hit him with
an arrow on his first day on the island,
Chau swam back to the fishing boat he had
arranged to wait for him offshore. The
arrow, he wrote, hit a Bible he was carrying.
“Why did a little kid have to shoot me
today?” he wrote in his notes, which he left
with the fishermen before swimming back
the next morning. “His high-pitched voice
still lingers in my head. ”
Police say Chau knew that the Sentinelese
resisted all contact by outsiders, firing
arrows and spears at passing helicopters and
killing fishermen who drift onto their shore.
His notes, which were reported Thursday in
Indian newspapers and confirmed by police,
make clear he knew he might be killed.
“I DON’T WANT TO DIE,” wrote Chau,
who appeared to want to bring Christianity
to the islanders. “Would it be wiser to leave
and let someone else to continue. No I don’t
think so.”
Chau paid fishermen to take him near
North Sentinel, using a kayak to paddle to
shore and bringing gifts, including a football
and fish.
Ho said the Indian government lifted
restrictions on traveling to the island in
August. She said she couldn’t comment on
why Chau arrived there the way he did, but
that he carefully planned it.
All Nations contacted the U.S. Depart
ment of State, Ho said. She doesn’t know
yet whether it will be possible to recover
Chau’s body.
“We are just in grief and in shock
about his death,” she said. “At the same
time, we consider it a real honor to have
worked with him, to have been a part of
his journey.”
Scholars know almost nothing about
the island, from how many people live
there to what language they speak.
The Andamans once had other similar
groups, long-ago migrants from Africa
and Southeast Asia who settled in the
island chain, but their numbers have
dwindled dramatically over the past cen
tury as a result of disease, intermarriage
and migration.
Five fishermen, a friend of Chau’s and
a local tourist guide have been arrested
for helping Chau.
Chau, whose friends described him
as a fervent Christian, attended Oral
Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Before that he had lived in southwestern
Washington state and went to Vancouver
Christian High School.
In an Instagram post, his family said
it was mourning him as a “beloved son,
brother, uncle and best friend to us.” The
family also said it forgave his killers.
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