According to the BBC, 10 members of the indigenous Greater Andamanese tribe in India have tested positive for coronavirus in the past month. The Greater Andamanese only have 53 remaining members.
The Andamans Islands are home to a total of five Indigenous tribes: the Jarawas, North Sentinelese, Great Andamanese, Onge and Shompen, and local health officials say a main priority is keeping the coronavirus from spreading to other vulnerable tribes.
For centuries, Indigenous people across the globe have suffered and died from communicable diseases spread by colonizers and other world travelers. Indigenous people are vulnerable to disease due both to lack of immunity and because of adverse social conditions imposed upon them by Western colonizers.
In the Americas, coronavirus has also spread through indigenous communities, notably in tribes living along the Amazon as well as in the Navajo Nation. The centuries of violence these groups have suffered have resulted in increased malnutrition, illness, and trauma that make them more susceptible to contracting and dying from covid-19.
As coronavirus pandemic continues, we must collectively reckon with the historical and ongoing mistreatment of tribal Indigenous people worldwide.
