Shipwrecked Hong Kong sailors’ brush with Indian island tribe that killed US missionary John Allen Chau
- Crew were being threatened by ‘wild … people carrying spears and arrows’, captain cabled after freighter ran aground off North Sentinel Island
- 31 sailors, most from Hong Kong, were trapped aboard MV Primrose facing attack by hostile islanders who 37 years later slew US missionary
The murder of American missionary John Allen Chau on North Sentinel Island last month at the hands of a so-called uncontacted tribe will no doubt have offered a chilling reminder to the crew of a Hong Kong-registered cargo ship that ran aground on the island 37 years ago.
Chau, 27, was shot with arrows on November 17 when he set foot on the island – part of the Indian-controlled Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal – to spread the teachings of Christianity.
The cargo ship MV Primrose foundered on a coral reef on August 2, 1981, off North Sentinel Island, with 31 crew members aboard – of whom 21 were Hong Kong Chinese.
For a week, the ship was buffeted by the waves, while the crew were spooked by hostile members of the Sentinelese tribe on the beach wielding arrows and spears, and even attempting to board the freighter from canoes.
