Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Who are the Sentinelese? 
 
 The family of a US man reportedly killed by arrows fired by members of an endangered tribe in India's Andaman and Nicobar islands have said they forgive those who killed him. 
 
 In a statement, they said John Allen Chau "loved God, life, helping those in need, and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people". 
 
 Seven people who helped him reach North Sentinel island have been arrested. 
 
 The Indian authorities say it may take "some days" to recover Mr Chau's body. 
 
 A missionary who was in contact with Mr Chau in the last days of his trip says his aim was to bring the gospel to the island's tribesmen. 
 
 Outsiders are banned from even approaching the island to protect the people who live there, and their way of life. 
 
 The complete isolation of the Sentinelese people means contact with the outside world could put them at risk, as they are likely to have no immunity to even common illnesses such as flu and measles. 
 
 Mr Chau's family released a statement on Instagram, saying he had gone to the island of "his own free will". 
 
 "We also ask for the release of those friends he had in the Andaman Islands. He ventured out of his own free will and his local contacts need not be persecuted for his own actions," the statement said. 
 
 A murder case has been registered against unknown persons, and seven people, including at least five fishermen, have been arrested for helping Mr Chau reach the island, police say. 
 
 The authorities have sent a helicopter and a ship to the area to identify where the incident took place. 
 
 "We maintained a distance from the island and have not yet been able to spot the body. It may take some more days and... [reconnaissance] of the area," Dependra Pathak, director-general of police on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, told the AFP news agency. 
 
 Police have roped in field experts, including Indian anthropologists and tribal welfare and forest officers, to help them tackle the situation. 
 
 "We have to take care that we must not disturb them or their habitat by any means. It is a highly sensitive zone and it will take some time," he said. 
 
 On his last visit to the island, Mr Chau had taken a boat with local fishermen towards the remote North Sentinel island. He then ventured alone in a canoe to the beach. 
 
 As soon as he set foot on the island, he was attacked with bows and arrows, according to the fishermen. 
 
 Image copyright Survival International Image caption Few images of the endangered tribe exist 
 
 According to extracts of a journal published in the Washington Post, on a previous visit, he had shouted at them: "My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you." 
 
 One of the tribesmen shot at him with an arrow, which pierced his waterproof Bible, he wrote. 
 
 In a last note to his family, he wrote: "You guys might think I'm crazy in all this but I think it's worthwhile to declare Jesus to these people. 
 
 "God, I don't want to die." 
 
 He had taken scissors, safety pins and a football as gifts to the tribe, according to a source quoted by Reuters news agency who had access to his notes and asked not to be named. 
 
 He wrote he was "doing this to establish the kingdom of Jesus on the island... Do not blame the natives if I am killed," the source said. 
 
 'Dream gone wrong' 
 
 Jeff King is president of International Christian Concern, the organisation with which Mr Chau was aligned, and was in contact with him during his visit. 
 
 "John went there to bring the gospel to these people... He had talked about it... planned it for a while, so it wasn't a whim, it wasn't a lark," he told the BBC's Newsday programme. 
 
 "He'd been in the islands before, to this particular island... there were three or four visits on that day, and what happened was on the first visit he was turned back by arrows; the second visit, he came with two big fish as a gift. 
 
 "My understanding was the men accepted the gift; they sat together for an hour; he said they were menacing and they actually shot him. He went back to the boat, and then gradually went back a third time. That's when the fishermen who were looking through binoculars saw that they'd killed him and were taking him apart. 
 
 "This was not a job he was doing - this was a dream he had that unfortunately went wrong." 
 
 The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a chain of small islands hundreds of kilometres east of India in the Indian Ocean. 
 
 Contact with several tribes on the islands is illegal to protect their indigenous way of life. 
 
 In 2017, the Indian government also said taking photographs or making videos of the aboriginal Andaman tribes would be punishable with imprisonment of up to three years. 
 
 Two Indian fishermen fishing illegally off North Sentinel Island were killed by the tribe in 2006. 
 
 Image copyright Christian Caron - Creative Commons A-NC-SA Image caption The Sentinelese stand guard on an island beach in 2005 
 
 The Sentinelese are totally cut off from the rest of the world. 
 
 Global organisations like London-based Survival International have been campaigning to protect the indigenous tribes living in the Andamans. 
 
 The tribe live on their own island, roughly the size of Manhattan, but most of what is known about them comes from viewing them from a distance. 
 
 Read more on uncontacted tribes: ||||| (CNN) John Allen Chau was an adventurer who hiked in North Cascades National Park in the Pacific Northwest, traveled to Israel and went on mission trips to South Africa. But he was always drawn to North Sentinel Island off the coast of India, and the people there. 
 
 The Sentinelese live in isolation on the remote island in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, protected by Indian law to maintain their way of life and protect them from modern illnesses because they lack immunity. Chau took a scouting trip to the Andaman islands several years ago and told people of his desire to return, said a friend, John Middleton Ramsey. 
 
 Chau's zeal to spread the Christian gospel took him back to the remote island, where he apparently was killed last week by tribespeople after trespassing, authorities said. Contact with the isolated tribe is prohibited. But those who knew the American missionary are calling him a martyr for the Christian faith. 
 
 "He was someone who died out of love for these people to bring the good news of Jesus Christ," Ramsey, 22, said in an interview Wednesday from Cologne, Germany. 
 
 'We refuse to call him a tourist' 
 
 Indian authorities say Chau was 27, but Mat Staver, founder of a Christian ministry that Chau was involved with as a college student, gave Chau's age as 26. 
 
 Chau came to India on a tourist visa but traveled to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in October to proselytize, according to Dependra Pathak, director general of police of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. 
 
 "We refuse to call him a tourist. Yes, he came on a tourist visa, but he came with a specific purpose to preach on a prohibited island," he said. 
 
 Just more than a dozen people are believed to live on the island, which is a protected area. People are not allowed to go within 5 nautical miles of the island after previous instances of aggressive behavior toward outsiders. In 2006, the tribes killed two local fishermen. 
 
 Chau asked a local friend, an electronic engineer, to get a boat and find several fishermen and a water sports expert to help with the expedition, according to Pathak. 
 
 The fishermen said they used "a wooden boat fitted with motors to travel to the island on November 15," Pathak said. 
 
 The boat stopped a little less than half a mile away and Chau "used a canoe to reach the shore of the island," Pathak said. Chau returned later that day with arrow injuries. On November 16, "the (tribespeople) broke his canoe." 
 
 "So, he came back to the boat swimming. He did not come back on the 17th; the fishermen later saw the tribespeople dragging his body around," Pathak said. 
 
 Police haven't independently verified Chau's death, but they believe he was killed, based on the account of the fishermen. Authorities have yet to recover Chau's body. 
 
 'He loved Jesus' 
 
 Raised in Vancouver, Washington, Chau was first drawn to the outdoors after discovering a copy of "Robinson Crusoe" while in elementary school, he said in an article several years ago in The Outbound Collective , a website and app that helps people discover the outdoors. 
 
 He and his brother would paint their faces with wild blackberry juice and run around their backyard with bows and spears made from sticks, according to the article. 
 
 Chau graduated from Oral Roberts University, where he got involved with Covenant Journey, the Christian ministry that takes college students on immersion trips to Israel, according to Staver, who is the group's chairman. 
 
 Chau traveled to Israel with Covenant Journey, and to South Africa on missions with a group at Oral Roberts, Staver said. 
 
 "John loved people, and he loved Jesus. He was willing to give his life to share Jesus with the people on North Sentinel island," Staver said in a press release. "Ever since high school, John wanted to go to North Sentinel to share Jesus with this indigenous people." 
 
 In the Outward Collective article, Chau spoke of his earlier adventures, including hiking Table Mountain in Washington state on Christmas break while in college. 
 
 Chau said going back to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands was on the top of his adventure to-do list, the article said. 
 
 Chau knew the risks but it 'didn't frighten him' 
 
 Chau did not tell police of his intentions to travel to North Sentinel to attempt to convert its inhabitants, officials said. But he told a few people close to him, like Ramsey, who said Chau knew the island was a restricted area and his mission there was illegal. 
 
 Ramsey, who met Chau in August 2015 on a Covenant Journey trip to Israel, said they "both had a passion for sharing our faith with others." 
 
 When Chau returned from this scouting trip, Ramsey recalled Chau talked about his plans to return to the remote region, bearing gifts for the Sentinelese people. He said he wanted to get to know the islanders' way of life, eventually share the gospel and perhaps translate the Bible, Ramsey recalled. 
 
 "I kind of gathered that he would have been open to staying there for the rest of his life, but he didn't explicitly say that," Ramsey said. 
 
 Ramsey said Chau knew the risks, "but it didn't seem to frighten him." 
 
 "He believed he was going to heaven, going to be with God if he died," Ramsey said. 
 
 For that reason, Chau didn't want anyone to come with him to the island and put their lives in danger, Staver said. 
 
 "He went back himself knowing that he would be in danger." 
 
 Norwegian geneticist Erika Hagelberg described the larger group of Andaman Islanders as "arguably the most enigmatic people on our planet." They are made up of several tribal groups, who were largely isolated until the island chain was turned into a British penal colony in the 19th century. 
 
 Survival International, a nongovernmental group that says it is dedicated to tribal peoples' rights, said Indian authorities should ensure outsiders not make contact with the tribe, because of the risk of disease or threats to their land. 
 
 "The Sentinelese have shown again and again that they want to be left alone, and their wishes should be respected," the group said. "The British colonial occupation of the Andaman Islands decimated the tribes living there, wiping out thousands of tribespeople, and only a fraction of the original population now survive. So, the Sentinelese fear of outsiders is very understandable." 
 
 'This faith is worth dying for' 
 
 In a post on his Instagram page, Chau's relatives said: "He loved God, life, helping those in need, and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people." 
 
 They remembered him as a beloved family member. To others, he was "a Christian missionary, a wilderness EMT, an international soccer coach, and a mountaineer," his family wrote. 
 
 To Ramsey, Chau is a modern-day Jim Elliot -- an American evangelical Christian who was killed in a mission in Ecuador in the 1950s. His friend may be able to reach more people in death than in life, Ramsey said. 
 
 "This can make a statement to the world that this faith is worth dying for, I suppose," Ramsey said. ||||| An American man who was killed by an isolated tribe on a remote Indian island wrote to his parents hours before his death that he wanted to “declare Jesus” to the tribespeople and that they should “not be angry at them or at God if I get killed”. 
 
 John Allen Chau, 26, is believed to have been hit with a volley of arrows shortly after making land on North Sentinel Island, part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, last Friday. 
 
 The island, which is off-limits to visitors without permission, is home to a 30,000-year-old tribe that is known to aggressively resist outsiders. 
 
 Chau repeatedly tried to contact the tribespeople and managed to reach the island the day before he was killed. He tried to offer gifts of fish and a football, he wrote in his diary. 
 
 “I heard the whoops and shouts from the hunt,” Chau wrote in an entry that was given to several media outlets by his mother. “I made sure to stay out of arrow range, but unfortunately that meant I was also out of good hearing range. 
 
 “So I got a little closer as they (about six from what I could see) yelled at me, I tried to parrot their words back to them. They burst out laughing most of the time, so they probably were saying bad words or insulting me. 
 
 “I hollered: ‘My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you.’ I regret I began to panic slightly as I saw them string arrows in their bows. I picked up the fish and threw it towards them. They kept coming. 
 
 “I paddled like I never have in my life back to the boat. I felt some fear but mainly was disappointed. They didn’t accept me right away.” 
 
 One of the tribespeople – “a kid probably about 10 or so years old, maybe a teenager” – fired an arrow that struck his Bible, he wrote that night, onboard the boat of fishermen he paid 25,000 rupees (£275) to smuggle him close to the island. “Well, I’ve been shot by the Sentinelese.” 
 
 The next day as he prepared to make another approach, Chau wrote a letter to his parents. “You guys might think I’m crazy in all this, but I think it’s worth it to declare Jesus to these people,” he wrote. 
 
 “Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed. Rather, please live your lives in obedience to whatever he has called you to and I’ll see you again when you pass through the veil. 
 
 “This is not a pointless thing. The eternal lives of this tribe is at hand and I can’t wait to see them around the throne of God worshipping in their own language, as Revelations 7:9-10 states.” 
 
 He signed off: “Soli deo gloria” (glory to God alone). 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Sentinelese man aims his bow and arrow at an Indian coastguard helicopter as it flies over North Sentinel Island after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images 
 
 But his diaries revealed less certainty about the mission he was undertaking. “If you want me to get actually shot or even killed with an arrow, then so be it,” he wrote, addressing God. “I think I could be more useful alive though. 
 
 “I don’t want to die. Would it be wiser to leave and let someone else continue? No. I don’t think so. I still could make it back to the US somehow, as it almost seems like certain death to stay here.” 
 
 He gave the diary and letter to the fishermen and took a kayak back to the island. The next morning, according to a police statement, “the fishermen saw a dead person being buried at the shore which from the silhouette of the body, clothing and circumstances appeared to be the body of John Allen Chau”. 
 
 Seven people including five fishermen have been arrested for helping Chau reach the island. The Indian government recently lifted a ban on tourists going there, but Denis Giles, an activist for tribal rights in the Andamans, said state authorities still asked people to seek permission, and the status of the island was “a grey area”. 
 
 Police said Chau had visited the Andamans, which are scattered across the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, four times in the past three years. 
 
 His family posted on his Instagram on Wednesday that they forgave his killers and asked for those who helped him to be released. They said Chau was a “beloved son, brother and uncle” as well as a Christian missionary. 
 
 “He loved God, life, helping those in need, and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people,” the family said. “We forgive those reportedly responsible for his death.” 
 
 The Sentinelese are estimated to number about 100 and are the most isolated of the four tribes native to the Andamans. 
 
 British colonists kidnapped four members of the tribe in the 19th century and Indian anthropologists managed to make limited contact with the community starting in 1967, but for the past 25 years the group has been isolated from the outside world. 
 
 Members of the tribe fired arrows at Indian government helicopters that passed over the island after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and again in February 2006 after two fishermen were killed by the tribespeople when their boat became unmoored at night and drifted to the shore. 
 
 Indian authorities said it would take “some days” to recover Chau’s body. Dependra Pathak, the head of the region’s police, told Agence France-Presse that a helicopter and a ship had been sent to the area to identify where he might be buried. 
 
 “We maintained a distance from the island and have not yet been able to spot the body,” Pathak said. “It may take some more days.” 
 
 The recovery effort involved anthropologists and tribal welfare and forestry officers, he said. “We have to take care that we must not disturb [the Sentinelese] or their habitat by any means. It is a highly sensitive zone and it will take some time,” Pathak added.
– Forgiveness is the call of the day from the family of John Allen Chau, the US missionary killed last week by a hostile tribe on India's North Sentinel Island. The BBC reports that the Chau family posted an Instagram photo Wednesday of their "beloved son, brother, uncle, and best friend," along with a caption that noted, "We forgive those reportedly responsible for his death." They also implored Indian authorities to release "friends" who were detained, including at least five fishermen who helped him access the island. "He ventured out on his own free will and his local contacts need not be persecuted for his own actions," they wrote. More on Chau's ill-fated visit to the Andaman Islands: Indeed, Chau, said to be 26 or 27, knew the risks, including that his trip to the protected island wasn't permitted—people aren't allowed to go within 5 nautical miles of it, per CNN. The founder of a Christian ministry Chau was involved with says Chau purposely didn't ask anyone to go with him, because he knew the dangers, while friend John Middleton Ramsey says the risks didn't seem to faze him: "He believed he was going to heaven, going to be with God if he died." It was that Christian faith that appears to have drawn him to the island in the first place, with the Guardian noting a letter he penned to his parents shortly before he died about his mission to convert the Sentinelese. "You guys might think I'm crazy in all this, but I think it's worth it to declare Jesus to these people," he wrote. "Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed. … This is not a pointless thing. The eternal lives of this tribe is at hand and I can't wait to see them around the throne of God worshipping in their own language."