Four Colombian children who were missing for six weeks alone in the Amazon jungle after a plane crash have been found alive – and malnourished but otherwise healthy.
The siblings, Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and baby Cristin who had his first birthday while lost in the jungle, had been travelling in a light aircraft on May 1 when it crashed.
The accident killed everyone else on board, the children’s mother Magdalena Mucutui Valencia, the pilot and an indigenous leader.
But when the wreckage of the plane was found after weeks of hunting not only were the children not found dead alongside the adults, there was part-eaten fruit that suggested they had all survived.
Meanwhile, Colombians have accused their president of creating false hope after he announced four children had been miraculously rescued from a plane crash in the Amazon, only for the armed forces to declare they are still yet to find survivors.
Three adult bodies were already found after the crash, which is believed to have happened due to a mechanical failure on May 1.
That sparked a huge hunt across miles of dense and remote Amazon rainforest.
There was false hope late last month when the country’s President Gustavo Petro mistakenly said they were safe only to retract his statement and say there was just evidence they might still be alive.
But the rescue efforts intensified and yesterday delivered the news the country, and the watching world, had hoped for.
‘It is a joy for the whole country,’ Petro tweeted.
‘They were alone, they themselves achieved an example of total survival which will remain in history.’
The siblings, members of the Huitoto Indigenous group, are dehydrated, malnourished and bitten by insects but are otherwise healthy, rescuers said.
Their grandmother, whose voice was played from aircraft above the jungle during the search to reassure the youngsters they were being looked for, told reporters: ‘I never lost hope, I was always supporting the search. I feel very happy, I thank President Petro and my ‘countrymen’ who went through so many difficulties.’
Overnight an army helicopter hovered above the tree canopy, hoisted the four on board and flew them to hospital for checks.
The delighted soldiers had earlier posed for photographs with the children, who appeared emaciated.
The children’s grandfather told Noticias Caracol he was very grateful to the army for helping to find them, adding ‘I want to see them’.
The survival story is all the more miraculous as the jungle is home to jaguars, pumas, snakes and other predators, as well as armed groups that smuggle drugs and terrorize local populations.
Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez paid tribute to the various army units’ ‘unshakeable and tireless’ work, as well as to the Indigenous people who took part in the search.
Army rescuers ‘immediately took charge of and stabilised’ the four siblings, who were to be transferred to San Jose del Guaviare, according to the minister.
The drama began to unfold on May 1 when the group caught a routine flight on a Cessna 206 from Araracuara to the town of San Jose del Guaviare.
Minutes after starting the 350km (220 mile) journey, the pilot reported problems with the engine and the plane disappeared from radars.
Between May 15 and 16, soldiers found the bodies of the three adults and the debris of the plane, which was wedged vertically in the thick vegetation, its nose destroyed.
But the children – Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and baby Cristin – remained missing.
Some 200 soldiers and indigenous people with knowledge of the terrain have been combing a dense jungle area of some 320 sq km (124 sq mi) – about double the size of Washington DC.
The air force had dumped 10,000 flyers into the forest with instructions in Spanish and the children’s indigenous Huitoto language, telling them to stay put.
The leaflets also included survival tips, and the military has dropped food parcels and bottled water for the children.
