Informant38

"If the state does not send in police in the next few days, there could be deaths," the federation's president, Victor Pesha, told Reuters. "Our fear is that genocide could happen."

About a tenth of the 80,000 residents of the Madre de Dios department are Amazonian Indians. Experts say the uncontacted peoples live in voluntary isolation in small groups, supporting themselves as hunter-gatherers and from fishing.

Peru established a reserve in Madre de Dios for uncontacted peoples in April, which should be off-limits to the loggers.

But activists say hundreds of loggers are in the area near the reserve, working on commission for big timber companies, at least one of which they say is based in the United States.