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Colombian children found alive five weeks after Amazon jungle plane crash Colombian children found alive five weeks after Amazon jungle plane crash
(about 2 hours later)
The children – one of whom was just 11 months old – were rescued by the military after surviving on fruit and making shelters in the thick jungleThe children – one of whom was just 11 months old – were rescued by the military after surviving on fruit and making shelters in the thick jungle
Four children from an Indigenous community in Colombia were found alive in the south of the country more than five weeks after the plane they were travelling in crashed in thick jungle, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, has said. Four Indigenous children who disappeared 40 days ago after surviving a small plane crash in the Amazon jungle have been found alive, Colombian authorities announced, ending an intense search that gripped the nation.
The children were rescued by the military near the border between Colombia’s Caqueta and Guaviare provinces, close to where the small plane had crashed. The children were alone when searchers found them and are now receiving medical attention, President Gustavo Petro told reporters upon his return to Bogotá from Cuba.
“A joy for the whole country! The four children who were lost … in the Colombian jungle appeared alive,” Petro said in a message via Twitter. The president said the youngsters were an “example of survival” and predicted their saga “will remain in history”. He tweeted: “A joy for the whole country! The four children who were lost … in the Colombian jungle appeared alive.”
The plane – a Cessna 206 – was carrying seven people on a route between Araracuara, in Amazonas province, and San Jose del Guaviare, a city in Guaviare province, when it issued a mayday alert due to engine failure in the early hours of 1 May. No details were immediately released on how the youngsters managed to survive on their own for so many days.
Three adults, including the pilot, died as a result of the crash and their bodies were found inside the plane. The four children, aged 13, nine and four, as well as an 11-month-old baby, survived the impact. The plane they were in – a Cessna 206 – was carrying seven people on a route between Araracuara, in Amazonas province, and San Jose del Guaviare, a city in Guaviare province, when it issued a mayday alert due to engine failure in the early hours of 1 May.
The small aircraft fell off radar a short time later and a frantic search for survivors began. Two weeks after the crash, on 16 May, a search team found the plane in a thick patch of the rainforest and recovered the bodies of the three adults on board, believed to include the children’s mother, but the children were nowhere to be found.
Preliminary information from the civil aviation authority, which coordinated the rescue efforts in the Amazonian jungle, suggests the children escaped the plane and set off into the rainforest to find help.Preliminary information from the civil aviation authority, which coordinated the rescue efforts in the Amazonian jungle, suggests the children escaped the plane and set off into the rainforest to find help.
Initially, there was confusion over whether the children had been found alive after claims from the country’s president that they had been located were contradicted by military sources.
Rescuers, supported by search dogs, had previously found discarded fruit the children ate to survive, as well as improvised shelters made with jungle vegetation.Rescuers, supported by search dogs, had previously found discarded fruit the children ate to survive, as well as improvised shelters made with jungle vegetation.
Airplanes and helicopters from Colombia’s army and air force participated in the rescue operations. Colombia’s army stepped up the hunt for the children and flew 150 soldiers with dogs into the area to track the group of four siblings, ages 13, nine, four, and an 11-month-old baby. Dozens of volunteers from Indigenous tribes also helped search.
On Friday, the military 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.
“The union of our efforts made this possible” Colombia’s military command tweeted.
During the search, in an area where visibility is greatly limited by mist and thick foliage, soldiers on helicopters dropped boxes of food into the jungle, hoping that it would help sustain the children. Planes flying over the jungle fired flares to help search crews on the ground at night, and rescuers used megaphones that blasted a message recorded by the siblings’ grandmother, telling them to stay in one place.
Rumours also emerged about the children’s whereabouts and on 18 May, Petro tweeted that the children had been found. He then deleted the message, claiming he had been misinformed by a government agency.
The children are members of the Huitoto people, and officials said the oldest children in the group had some knowledge of how to survive in the rainforest.
On Friday, after confirming the children had been rescued, the president said that for a while he had believed the children were rescued by one of the nomadic tribes that still roam the remote swathe of the jungle where the plane fell and have little contact with authorities.
But Petro added that the children were first found by one of the rescue dogs that soldiers took into the jungle. He said that he hoped to meet the children on Saturday.
“The jungle saved them” Petro said. “They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.”
With Associated Press and Reuters