'Lost tribe' in Brazilian Amazon missing after suspected drug traffickers raid jungle

A lost Indian tribe found to be living in the remote jungles of Brazil vanished from its village after suspected Peruvian cocaine smugglers overran the area, officials said.

Indian affairs experts fear that the lost tribe, who appeared in aerial photos released in January, fled in fear after heavily armed thugs raided a Brazilian guardpost that was protecting them.

Tribal advocacy groups say there is no sign of the Indians since the raid in western Brazil, about 32 miles from the Peruvian border.

Workers from FUNAI, Brazil's Indians Affairs Department, found a broken arrow inside one of the gunman's backpacks, sparking fears for the tribe's safety.

"Arrows are like the identity card of uncontacted Indians. We think the Peruvians made the Indians flee," Carlos Travassos, the head of the government's isolated Indians department, said in a statement on Monday.

"We are more worried than ever," he said.

Indian affairs officials fear the tribe was driven from its village by cocaine traffickers from Peru. (Gleison Miranda/Funai/Survival International)

Police found 44 pounds of cocaine in the area and arrested a man who had been deported for drug trafficking in March, the statement said.

Jos Carlos Meirelles, the chief of the remote guardpost, returned to the area and reported seeing groups of men armed with sub-machine guns prowling the jungle.

The tribe made headlines earlier this year after an astonishing series of photos released showed healthy-looking men, women and children, some painted red, living in palm-roofed huts and growing their own food.

Some 2,000 lost or "uncontacted" Indians live in the jungles of the western Amazon, according to the human rights group Survival International.

For years, the tribes have been threatened by illegal loggers in the area.

Now, officials fear that the region has become an entry point into Brazil for drug traffickers.

"This situation could be one of the biggest blows we have ever seen in the protection of uncontacted Indians in recent decades," Travassos said. "It's a catastrophe."

Meirelles said his team would remain in the area and that police teams were hunting the remaining traffickers.