Britons and Americans are among 70 people being held by indigenous group in Peru’s Amazon rainforest

Britons have been taken hostage by an indigenous group in in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest in Peru, local media reported.

The tourists were part of a group of 70 travellers who were also from France, Spain, the US and Switzerland when they were held up.

A group leader said they wanted to ‘catch the government’s attention with this action’.

Watson Trujillo, who leads the Cuninico community, said the ‘drastic measures’ are in response to an oil leak in September.

Trujillo said his group wanted to put pressure on the government to send a delegation to assess the environmental damage from the September 16 spill of 2,500 tons of crude oil into the Cuninico river.

The detainees would spend the night inside the vessel while awaiting a solution to the situation, he added.

Trujillo said he would return to the boat on Friday to evaluate the possibility of releasing the tourists.

The government and police did not comment on the incident, which took place on a tributary of the Maranon river.

Indigenous communities had already been blocking the transit of all vessels on the river in protest against the spill, which was caused by a rupture in the Norperuano oil pipeline.

On September 27, the government declared a 90-day state of emergency in the impacted region, which is home to the Cuninico and Urarinas communities and where about 2,500 indigenous people live.

The 800km-long Norperuano pipeline, owned by state-owned Petroperu, was built four decades ago to transport crude oil from the Amazon region to the ports of Piura, on the coast.

According to Petroperu, the spill was the result of an intentional 21-centimeter cut in the pipeline pipe.