A baby and three children aged 4, 9 and 13 were found alive more than a month after their plane crashed near the Colombian Amazon rainforest.
The kids survived like the “children of the jungle,” according to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.
“Their learning from indigenous families and their learning of living in the jungle has saved them,” Petro said to reporters on Friday after tweeting that the children had been recovered 40 days after they had disappeared following a plane disaster that claimed their mother’s life.
The kids, according to Petro, were all together when they were discovered and had shown “total survival that will be remembered in history.” “They are children of the jungle, and now they are children of Colombia,” he continued.
The kids are from the indigenous Huitoto people. Mr. Petro posted a picture of the siblings, who had been missing for 40 days, being cared for by several military personnel and Indigenous people. The smallest child was fed from a bottle by one of the rescuers, who also used a spoon to feed one of the other kids from a mug.
The remote crash site amidst the towering foliage, made search and rescue efforts an uphill battle. The children could be seen being airlifted into a helicopter in the dark over the tall trees of the bush in a video posted by Colombia’s defense ministry. They were airlifted to Bogota, the nation’s capital, where ambulances took them to a hospital for additional medical care.
Fatima Valencia, the grandmother of the kids, expressed her gratitude to mother earth and herself following their rescue by saying: “I am very grateful, as well, that they were set free.”
She claimed that the four siblings’ ability to care for the other three when their mother was away from home helped them survive in the forest. “She gave them flour and cassava bread, any fruit in the bush, they know what they must consume,” Ms. Valencia stated in a video acquired by EVN.
THE HISTORY OF THE CRASH AND HOW THE CHILDREN WERE FOUND
The ill-fated journey began when their aircraft Cessna 206, en route from Araracuara to San José del Guaviare, through the dense expanse of the Amazon encountered unexpected turbulence and lost control, hurtling downward into the dense forests.
Small footprints were found, which gave search workers hope that the kids were still alive in the jungle, which is inhabited by predators like jaguars and snakes.
The four children, left to fend for themselves amidst the dense jungle, survived on their wits.
Indigenous people also joined the search, and helicopters aired a message in the Huitoto language that was recorded by the children’s grandmother pleading with them to stop moving so that they would be easier to find. Fidencio Valencia, the children’s grandfather, requested that the children be transported to Villavicencio, which is around 130 kilometers (142 miles) from Bogota when they were discovered.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, but I must ask the president as the highest authority; it is my right and my obligation because it is in my blood and my family,” said the grandfather.
