Missing children found after more than month in Amazon

Four young children have been found alive after more than a month wandering the Colombian Amazon, according to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.


“A joy for the whole country! The four children who were lost 40 days ago in the Colombian jungle were found alive,” Petro tweeted on Friday.


Petro also shared a photo that appears to show search crews with the four children, whose condition is unknown.


The children are the only survivors of a May 1 plane crash that killed pilot Hernando Murcia Morales, Yarupari indigenous leader Herman Mendoza Hernández, and their mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia.


Their subsequent disappearance into the deep forest had galvanized a massive military-led search operation involving over a hundred Colombian special forces troops and over 70 indigenous scouts combing the area.


For weeks, the search turned up only tantalizing clues, including footprints, a dirty diaper and a bottle. Family members said the oldest child had some experience in the forest, but hopes waned the longer that the children remained missing.

Early hopes arose in mid-May when Petro mistakenly tweeted that the children had been found. He was later forced to backtrack.


News of their survival in the wild now is all the more extraordinary at such a young age; the eldest is just 13 years old and the youngest still an infant.

Colombia plane crash: Missing children found after more than a month in Amazon | CNN

Great news!

Guess they grow up a bit tougher in Colombia.

In fairness, those fulfillment centres are huge.

Article in that link now updated

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Four young children have been found alive after more than a month wandering the Amazon jungle, according to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.
“A joy for the whole country! The four children who were lost 40 days ago in the Colombian jungle were found alive,” Petro tweeted on Friday, attaching a image that seems to show search crews treating the children in a forest clearing.
The children, who appear gaunt in the photos, are being evaluated by doctors and will be evacuated for medical treatment.

Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, age 13, Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, and infant Cristin Ranoque Mucutuy were stranded in the jungle on May 1, the only survivors of a deadly plane crash.
Their mother, Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia, was killed in the crash along with two other adult passengers: pilot Hernando Murcia Morales and Yarupari indigenous leader Herman Mendoza Hernández.
The children’s subsequent disappearance into the deep forest galvanized a massive military-led search operation involving over a hundred Colombian special forces troops and over 70 indigenous scouts combing the area.

For weeks, the search turned up only tantalizing clues, including footprints, a dirty diaper and a bottle. Family members said the oldest child had some experience in the forest, but hopes waned as the weeks went on.
Indigenous leader Lucho Acosta, the coordinator of indigenous scouts, credited the “extra effort” of search and rescue teams and local authorities to find the children in a statement on Friday.
“They all added a little effort so that this Operation Hope could be successful, and we can hope the kids will emerge alive and stronger than before. We have been hoping together with the strength of our ancestors, and our strength prevailed,” he said.
“We never stopped looking for them until the miracle came,” the Colombian Defense Ministry tweeted.

During a press conference Friday evening, Petro said the children would receive immediate medical evaluation and treatment, and that he hoped to speak with them on Saturday.
“The most important thing now is what the doctors say, they have been lost for 40 days, their health condition must have been stressed. We need to check their mental state too,” he said.
“They will receive medical treatment and depending on what the doctors say they might be transferred to Bogota or Villavicencio. I’m going to try speak with them tomorrow,” he said.
Petro, who was previously forced to backtrack after mistakenly tweeting that they had been found last month, described the children’s 40-day saga as “a remarkable testament of survival.”
“These are the children of peace and the children of Colombia,” he said.

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Family members said the oldest child had some experience in the forest

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I should coco.

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Rescuers had also uncovered improvised shelters made with jungle vegetation during efforts to follow their tracks.

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From the BBC

Colombia plane crash: Four children found alive in Amazon after 40 days - BBC News

... and I couldn't last a few days without a pizza or latte with extra whipping!

I think this probably helped. Still incredible, especially the baby though.

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The children belong to the Huitoto indigenous group and members of their community hoped that their knowledge of fruits and jungle survival skills would give them a better chance of remaining alive.

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Cassava flour and fruit kept 4 children alive for 40 days after plane crash in Colombia’s jungle

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Four Indigenous children survived an Amazon plane crash that killed three adults and then braved the jungle for 40 days before being found alive by Colombian soldiers, bringing a happy ending to a search-and-rescue saga that captivated a nation and forced the usually opposing military and Indigenous people to work together.


Cassava flour and some familiarity with the rainforest’s fruits were key to the children’s extraordinary survival in an area where snakes, mosquitoes and other animals abound. The members of the Huitoto people, aged 13, 9 and 4 years and 11 months, are expected to remain for a minimum of two weeks at a hospital receiving treatment after their rescue Friday.


Family members, President Gustavo Petro as well as government and military officials met the children Saturday at the hospital in Bogota, the capital. Defense Minister Iván Velásquez told reporters the children were being rehydrated and cannot eat food yet.


“But in general, the condition of the children is acceptable,” Velásquez said. They were travelling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane crashed in the early hours of May 1.


The Cessna single-engine propeller plane was carrying three adults and the four children when the pilot declared an emergency due to an engine failure. The small aircraft fell off the radar a short time later and a search for survivors began.


“When the plane crashed, they took out (of the wreckage) a fariña, and with that, they survived,” the children’s uncle, Fidencio Valencia told reporters outside the hospital. Fariña is a cassava flour that people eat in the Amazon region.


“After the fariña ran out, they began to eat seeds,” Valencia said.


Timing was in the children’s favor. Astrid Cáceres, head of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, said the youngsters were also able to eat fruit because “the jungle was in harvest.”


An air force video released Friday showed a helicopter using lines to pull the youngsters up because it couldn’t land in the dense rainforest where they were found. The military on Friday tweeted pictures showing a group of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children, who were wrapped in thermal blankets. One of the soldiers held a bottle to the smallest child’s lips.


Gen. Pedro Sanchez, who was in charge of the rescue efforts, said that the children were found 5 kilometers (3 miles) away from the crash site in a small forest clearing. He said rescue teams had passed within 20 to 50 meters (66 to 164 feet) of where the children were found on a couple of occasions but had missed them.


“The minors were already very weak,” Sanchez said. “And surely their strength was only enough to breathe or reach a small fruit to feed themselves or drink a drop of water in the jungle.”


Petro called the children an “example of survival” and predicted their saga “will remain in history.”

Two weeks after the crash, on May 16, a search team found the plane in a thick patch of the rainforest and recovered the bodies of the three adults on board, but the small children were nowhere to be found.


Sensing that they could be alive, Colombia’s army stepped up the hunt and flew 150 soldiers with dogs into the area, where mist and thick foliage greatly limited visibility. Dozens of volunteers from Indigenous tribes also joined the search.


Soldiers on helicopters dropped boxes of food into the jungle, hoping that it would help sustain the children. Planes flying over the area fired flares to help search crews on the ground at night, and rescuers used speakers that blasted a message recorded by the siblings’ grandmother telling them to stay in one place.


The announcement of their rescue came shortly after President Gustavo Petro signed a cease-fire with representatives of the National Liberation Army rebel group. In line with his government’s messaging highlighting his efforts to end internal conflicts, he stressed the joint work of the military and Indigenous communities to find the children.


“The meeting of knowledge: indigenous and military,” he tweeted. “Here is a different path for Colombia: I believe that this is the true path of Peace.”


Damaris Mucutuy, an aunt of the children, told a radio station that “the children are fine” despite being dehydrated and with insect bites. She added that the children had been offered mental health services.


Cáceres told reporters officials agreed with the children’s relatives to allow for “spiritual work” at the jungle and the hospital “ if there was no immediate emergency action” needed. She said musicians and musical instruments relevant to the children’s culture will be allowed in the hospital.


Officials praised the courage of eldest of the children, a girl, who they said had some knowledge of how to survive in the rainforest and led the children through the ordeal.


Before their rescue, rumors swirled about their whereabouts. So much so, that on May 18, Petro tweeted that the children had been found. He then deleted the message, claiming he had been misinformed by a government agency.


The children told officials they spent some time with the dog, but it then went missing. That was a rescue dog that soldiers took into the jungle. The military was still looking for the dog, a Belgian Shepherd named Wilson, as of Saturday.


Petro said that for a while he had believed the children were rescued by one of the nomadic tribes that still roam the remote area where the plane fell and have little contact with authorities.


As the search progressed, soldiers found small clues that led them to believe the children were still alive, including a pair of footprints, a baby bottle, diapers and pieces of fruit that looked like they had been bitten by humans.


“The jungle saved them,” Petro said. “They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.”

Cassava flour and fruit kept 4 children alive for 40 days after plane crash in Colombia'''s jungle | AP News

Good on the Columbian government for not giving up searching. 3 miles from the crash site is a long ways in jungle. Can't wait for the movie to come out!