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A highly vulnerable group of uncontacted Amazon Indians forced out of the rainforest in Brazil has caught flu, it has been confirmed.

Members of the unnamed tribe emerged from the rainforest in Brazil near the Peru border and made contact with a settled indigenous community, following 'violent attacks'.

However, officials confirmed they caught flu - and have now returned to their tribe, amid fears they could infect them.

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Three of the seven uncontacted Indians who made contact with a settled Ashaninka community near the Brazil-Peru border in June. Authorities have treated them after an outbreak of flu, but fear they could spread it through their tribe

A specialist FUNAI team is in the area to provide help to the newly-contacted group, and a medical unit has been flown in to treat possible epidemics of common respiratory and other diseases to which isolated indigenous groups lack immunity.

Seven Indians made peaceful contact with a settled indigenous Ashaninka community near the Envira River in the western Acre state, Brazil, three weeks ago.

Funai , Brazil's Indian Affairs Department, has announced that the group of uncontacted Indians has now returned once more to their forest home.

A government health team was dispatched and has treated seven Indians for flu.

The team has announced it will reopen a monitoring post on the Envira River which it closed in 2011 when it was overrun by drug traffickers.

The emerging news has been condemned as 'extremely worrying' by Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples' rights, as epidemics of flu, to which uncontacted Indians lack immunity, have wiped out entire tribes in the past.

Brazilian experts believe that the Indians, who belong to the Panoan linguistic group, crossed over the border from Peru into Brazil due to pressures from illegal loggers and drug traffickers on their land.

Survival's Director Stephen Corry said, 'This news could hardly be more worrying – not only have these people confirmed they suffered violent attacks from outsiders in Peru, but they have apparently already caught flu.

'The nightmare scenario is that they return to their former villages carrying flu with them.

'It's a real test of Brazil's ability to protect these vulnerable groups.

'Unless a proper and sustained medical program is immediately put in place, the result could be a humanitarian catastrophe.'

'uncontacted Indians' of the Envira photographed in May 2008: Researchers believe they have now been forced out of the forest by logging

It came just days after after Funai, Brazil's Indian Affairs Department, and Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples' rights, warned of the serious risk of such an incident.

They say the Peruvian authorities have failed to stop illegal logging on its side of the border.

The Indians had been coming increasingly close to the settled Asháninka Indians who live along the Envira River.

Nixiwaka Yawanawá, an Indian from Acre state, said, 'This news proves that my uncontacted relatives are threatened by violence and infectious diseases.

'We already know what can happen if the authorities don't take action to protect them, they will simply disappear.

'They need time and space to decide when they want to make contact and their choices must be respected. They are heroes!'

 

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