Peru Tribe Makes Second Attempt At Contact

A tribe of South American Indians living in voluntary isolation near Peru's southeastern Amazon region has made a tense attempt to contact the outside world for a second time.

Some 100 members of the Mashco-Piro tribe were captured on video attempting to cross a river that borders their remote community in the Manu National Park in the state of Madre de Dios.

The video was shot by forest rangers over three days in June and shows men armed with bows and arrows and several women and children.

It is the second time the tribe has attempted contact with outsiders. In 2011 the group was spotted on the bank of a different river after more than 20 years in isolation.

Saul Puerta Pena, director for the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), says the video is clear evidence of the existence of isolated tribes.

"Now the government doesn't have an argument to tell us that our indigenous brothers don't exist," he said.

"Their response was always that these indigenous people who choose to live in isolation didn't exist."

Mr Pena explained that a canoe containing bananas was floated across the river to the tribe due to the risks of them coming into contact with illnesses they have no defences against.

"The tribe cannot come into contact with the remote community still because any illness could kill them," he said.

Anthropologist Beatriz Huertas, who works with Peru's agency for indigenous affairs, said the Mashco-Piro are becoming increasingly less isolated.

"It is not unusual for them to appear where they did during a season of sparse rainfall when rivers are low, and they tend to be itinerant," she said.

"What's strange is that they came so close to the population of Monte Salvado."

Last October, a park ranger was lightly wounded by a blunt arrow fired by a Mashco-Piro native after getting too close to the tribe. "It was a warning," Ms Huacchillo said.

A similar incident was recorded in 2010, when a teenager was wounded by a spear.

On their website, Survival International mentioned the death late last year of Nicolas 'Shaco' Flores, a local resident who had been leaving food and gifts for a small group of Mashco-Piro natives for 20 years.

Peru Drugs Bust: Pair Appear In Police Video

A video has emerged of a British and an Irish woman speaking to police shortly after they were arrested on suspicion of cocaine-smuggling in Peru.

The footage shows the two women answering questions shortly after they were held at an airport near the capital, Lima, last week.

Melissa Reid, 19, and Michaella McCollum Connolly, 20, protested their innocence after police found 11kg (24.2lbs) of cocaine with an estimated street value of £1.5m in their luggage.

The police footage also shows an officer examining a row of food bags, in which the drug was allegedly hidden.

Police accused the two of acting as "drug mules" to carry the contraband back to Europe.

Reid, from Kirkintilloch in East Dunbartonshire, told officers: "I was forced to take these bags in my luggage."

Asked if she knew the bags contained drugs, Reid replied: "I did not know that."

The father of Reid told Sky News Scotland Correspondent Jane Chilton that his family is devastated by the arrest.

William Reid said she was a beautiful and intelligent young woman who would never do anything like this of her own free will.

Chilton tweeted: "He said he has spoken to her briefly. She's scared and the family are all distraught but at present don't know what is happening."

Archbishop of Lima Sean Walsh has visited the two women on remand and said "they were weepy and upset".

He told the Irish Independent: "They are embarrassed at how everything has affected their families back home. They are devastated by that but I assured them they need to stay strong.

"They believe they were set up and they will use that as a defence."

Ireland's former consul to Peru Michael Russell told Sky News: "There are various rumours or stories about what has happened.

"The main thing is not what happened but what the Peruvian courts believe. They are in very spartan conditions, not up to European standards.

"They are supposed to be up in front of a judge tomorrow and then they will be transferred to a prison."

He told the Irish Times that prosecutors may push for a charge of drug trafficking, which could carry a sentence of between 15 and 25 years in prison.

He said that if the women were convicted of carrying half of the cocaine each, they would likely be ordered to serve around seven years in jail.

But he added that any appeal would probably see the allegations reduced to the "lesser charge".

The pair confirmed to police at the Lima airport that they had travelled to the South American country from Spain, and then on a Peruvian domestic flight to Cuzco.

They reportedly stayed four days in Cuzco, which is 350-miles south east of Lima, before returning to the capital.

Both women were detained the following day at Lima's Jorge Chavez International Airport.

Peruvian police said the two had been held and their luggage examined after a sniffer dog detected drugs at the Air Europa check-in counter.

Reid was allegedly carrying 18 foil packets containing 5.78kg of cocaine while McCollum Connolly was accused of carrying 5.81kg of the drug in 16 bags hidden in food sachets.

They pair said they were planning to travel to Madrid and then to the Mediterranean island of Majorca.

They had apparently spent several weeks before the Peru trip living in Ibiza.

Reid had posted dozens of Facebook photos of her time on the island, although her profile had not been updated since late July.

Belfast-born McCollum Connolly, who refers to herself as just Michaella McCollum in the video, had reportedly been looking for work as a nightclub dancer and hostess in Ibiza.

The apparent disappearance from Ibiza of McCollum Connolly had sparked an online campaign back home, backed by a number of Irish sports stars, to establish her whereabouts.

McCollum Connolly, from Dungannon in County Tyrone, was travelling on an Irish passport.

A representative for the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin confirmed she was no longer considered missing and that consular assistance was being provided to her family.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is offering assistance to Reid while she is in custody.

The FCO said in a statement: "We can confirm the arrest of a British national in Peru on August 7. We are providing consular assistance."

Drug experts say Peru has almost certainly supplanted Colombia as the world's leading cocaine-producing country and the trade is used to fund a violent leftist insurgency.