"Massacre" reported by uncontacted Indians as rare video emerges 
 
 July 31, 2014 
 
 The uncontacted Indians appeared young and healthy, but reported shocking incidents of a massacre of their older relatives. © FUNAI/Survival 
 
 Rare video footage of the first contact with a group of uncontacted Indians near the Brazil-Peru border has emerged alongside new accounts of horrific violence against their community, prompting experts to call for the urgent protection of their land or risk their “extermination” and “genocide”. 
 
 The video clip was released by FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous affairs department, and first published by “Amazonia Blog” and shows several young and healthy Indians exchanging goods such as bananas. But disturbing reports by the Indians suggest that many of their elder relatives were massacred and their houses set on fire. 
 
 Interpreter Zé Correia reported, “The majority of old people were massacred by non-Indians in Peru, who shot at them with firearms and set fire to the houses of the uncontacted. They say that many old people died and that they buried three people in one grave. They say that so many people died that they couldn’t bury them all and their corpses were eaten by vultures.” 
 
 The uncontacted Indians are thought to have fled violence in Peru, and made contact with the settled Ashaninka community and agents of FUNAI at the end of June. The Indians were treated for an acute respiratory infection, to which they have no resistance, and kept in “quarantine” for several days before returning to the forest. 
 
 After first contact, the Indians contracted an acute respiratory infection. Experts believe that FUNAI lacks the resources to avert tragedy in the future. © FUNAI/Survival 
 
 According to experts, tragedy in the form of an epidemic was narrowly averted, but they warn that FUNAI lacks the resources and staff to respond to similar incidents in future. Guard posts in the area were closed after being ransacked by drug traffickers in 2011. 
 
 The doctor who treated the Indians warned of the possibility of more contacts in the region, and emphasized the crucial need to train more specialized health teams to deal with contact and post contact situations. 
 
 José Carlos Meirelles, who has monitored uncontacted Indians in this region for FUNAI for decades, said, “If they don’t make things secure for whoever turns up there, unfortunately we’ll repeat history and we will be jointly responsible for the extermination of these people.” 
 
 Peru has failed to adequately protect uncontacted Indians and their land, forcing them to flee over the border. The majority of Peru’s Amazon rainforest has been leased to oil and gas companies, which are allowed to operate in reserves dedicated to the protection of the world’s most vulnerable peoples. 
 
 Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, has called on the Brazilian government to immediately reinstate all its monitoring posts in the area as a matter of urgency and to allocate more funding for its uncontacted Indians unit, and on the Peruvian government to investigate the reports of a massacre and protect the land of uncontacted tribes. 
 
 The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the region’s foremost human rights body, called for the urgent protection of uncontacted tribes’ land on Wednesday. 
 
 Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, “It’s vital that Brazil and Peru immediately release funds for the full protection of uncontacted Indians’ lives and lands. Their economic growth is coming at the price of the lives of their indigenous citizens – now, their newfound wealth must be used to protect those few uncontacted tribes that have so far survived the ongoing genocide of America’s first people.” 
 
 Note to editors: 
 
 - The video footage of first contact, and accounts of the incident can be viewed here. 
 
 - More than 7,000 people have signed Survival’s urgent petition for the protection of uncontacted tribes’ land. ||||| Rating is available when the video has been rented. 
 
 This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| When young people from an indigenous tribe in Peru made contact with a settlement in Brazil, they reported violent attacks on elders in their community. 
 
 Updated Friday, Aug. 1, at 9:30 a.m. ET. 
 
 An indigenous tribe living near the Brazil-Peru border may be facing violent attacks from illegal loggers and drug traffickers who are exploiting the densely forested region, according to an advocacy group. 
 
 After years of living in isolation from the outside world, several young members of this "uncontacted" tribe recently entered a nearby settled community in Brazil. Through interpreters, they told harrowing stories about their encounters in the forests. 
 
 "The majority of old people were massacred by non-Indians in Peru, who shot at them with firearms and set fire to the houses of the uncontacted," an interpreter named Zé Correia reported through Survival International, a group that advocates for tribal people's rights. "They say that many old people died, and that they buried three people in one grave. They say that so many people died that they couldn't bury them all and their corpses were eaten by vultures." [See Photos of the Uncontacted Amazon Tribes] 
 
 In late June, a few members of the tribe emerged from the forest and voluntarily made contact with Ashaninka people in the village of Simpatia, in Brazil's Acre state. FUNAI, Brazil's indigenous affairs department, released a video clip of this initial contact today (July 31) that shows young tribe members exchanging bananas and other goods. 
 
 FUNAI representatives learned that these people had walked several days to Simpatia from their home turf within Peru's borders. Most of the tribe members appeared healthy at first. But after several visits to Simpatia, some showed flu-like symptoms. Earlier this month, seven of them were treated for acute respiratory infections. 
 
 Brazilian officials have gleaned that this tribe has had sporadic encounters with non-Indians, which have resulted in "terrible losses," said Fiona Watson, a researcher and field director with Survival International. These indigenous people also had a gun, some screws and other items that they may have purloined from non-Indians, perhaps from a logging camp, Watson told Live Science. 
 
 Her organization "is extremely concerned about their health, about possible future attacks, and about the reports from the uncontacted that some of their community were killed at the hands of non-Indians and their homes set on fire," Watson said in an emailed statement. She added that the organization is also worried about the ability of the Brazilian and Peruvian governments to contain a future epidemic in the region. Uncontacted people are particularly vulnerable to diseases, such as malaria and the flu, against which they have no immunity. 
 
 "There is an urgent priority to get trained specialist health teams able to go in immediately when any uncontacted appear, and for far greater monitoring of and protection of the territories of uncontacted tribes from invasions," Watson said. 
 
 Survival International has called on Peru to investigate the reports of a "massacre" and Brazil to allocate more funds for its uncontacted Indians unit to monitor the region. 
 
 Agnes Portalewska, the communications manager for the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based group Cultural Survival, said her organization has been following the story and is concerned, especially because these groups are vulnerable to disease from outsiders. 
 
 "Our concern is also with the fact that these incidents get more attention in the media, because of the 'exotic' aspect of the story, and few others make it into the mainstream media," Portalewska wrote in an email to Live Science. She noted that most groups who are considered "uncontacted" live in voluntary isolation and have some, albeit limited, contact with other groups for reasons of trade and marriage. 
 
 "Their right to live in isolation should be respected and protected, and states have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfill these rights," Portalewska said. 
 
 Earlier this week, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) released an extensive report urging South American governments to preserve the rights of indigenous people who live in voluntary isolation, and are at risk of confrontations with loggers, miners, oil and gas companies, religious missionaries, misguided ecotourism ventures, and drug traffickers. 
 
 Editor's note: This article was updated on Friday (Aug. 1) to add comments from Cultural Survival. 
 
 Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
– A video that purports to show footage of first contact with a formerly isolated tribe on the Brazil-Peru border has been released by Brazil's FUNAI agency, along with some disturbing news from tribe members themselves. As had been hinted at in previous reports, some of the younger members say they witnessed horrific attacks on their elders, reportedly at the hands of drug traffickers and illegal loggers, reports Live Science. Experts are pleading for immediate protection to fend off what they see as a possible "genocide," reports tribal rights group Survival International. Contrasting with images in the video of young tribe members trading bananas and hanging out by the water are the tales of death and destruction relayed to an interpreter. "The majority of old people were massacred by non-Indians in Peru, who shot at them with firearms and set fire to the houses of the uncontacted," he says. So many were killed that they either got buried en masse (sometimes three to a grave) or their corpses were devoured by vultures. "If they don’t make things secure for whoever turns up there, unfortunately we’ll repeat history and we will be jointly responsible for the extermination of these people," says a FUNAI worker. (Several tribe members have reportedly contracted the flu since coming into contact with the modern world.)