BOGOTA, Sep 21 (IPS) - Decimated by a flu epidemic and driven from their territory by the civil war, Colombia's Nukak indigenous people are teetering on the brink of extinction.
"It is absolutely essential for the Colombian government to find a way to let the Nukak return to their own land, otherwise they will not survive in the long term,"Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, warned Wednesday. The London-based non-governmental organisation works to support the self-determination of tribal people.
Fewer than 500 Nukak have survived, their numbers cut in half since their first contact with outsiders in 1988. They live in the Amazon jungle, and are considered one of the world's most mobile nomadic people. Their introduction to Western culture was less an encounter than a head-on collision.
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