This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/10/colombian-children-found-alive-five-weeks-after-amazon-jungle-plane-crash

The article has changed 11 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 5 Version 6
Colombian ‘miracle’ children found alive 40 days after Amazon jungle plane crash ‘Miracle, miracle’: lone children survive 40 days in Amazon jungle
(about 1 hour later)
The Indigenous children – one of whom was just 11 months old – are thought to have eaten food dropped by rescuers and used their own ancestral knowledge The four Indigenous children were the only survivors of a plane crash that killed their mother
Malnourished and covered in insect bites, four Indigenous children were rescued alive from the Colombian Amazon on Friday afternoon, 40 days after the plane they were travelling in crashed into the jungle. A few tantalising clues kept the rescuers going. The remains of fruit with bitemarks made by small human teeth, a pair of scissors and nappies in the rainforest mud. All offered hope that four children, who had miraculously survived a plane crash that killed their mother, the pilot and the only other adult on board, also survived the dangers of the Amazon.
In a remarkable feat of resilience, the children survived heavy storms in one of the most inhospitable parts of the country, home to predatory animals and armed groups. The oldest was only 13 when the plane went down on 1 May in southern Colombia. The youngest would mark his first birthday lost under the dense green canopy of trees and vegetation, alive with jaguars, poisonous snakes and other threats.
“They’ve given us an example of total survival that will go down in history,” said the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, calling it “a joy for the whole country”. The children are Lesly Jacobo Bonbaire, 13, Solecni Ranoque Mucutuy 9, Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy, 4 and Cristian Neryman Ranoque Mucutuy, now one.
The four siblings, aged 13, nine, four, and an 11-month-old baby, were from the Huitoto Indigenous community. Although malnourished, none of the children were in serious condition, even the youngest child, who spent his first birthday in the jungle. The remains of the Cessna light aircraft were found two weeks later, with the bodies of three adults still inside. But there was no sign of the children, who come from the Huitoto Indigenous community. A long search through the virgin, inhospitable forest began.
It is thought they survived by eating food survival kits airdropped into the jungle by the search team, but the education they received from their grandmother may also have been vital, said John Moreno, an Indigenous leader from nearby Vaupes. “This is a virgin forest, thick and dangerous … and they would have used the knowledge they gained in the community, the ancestral knowledge, in order to survive,” he told local media outlet Cambio. Helicopters hovered over the area around the crash, broadcasting messages from the children’s grandmother, telling them they hadn’t been forgotten, urging them to stay in one place, and dropping packets of food that may have helped them survive. In the middle of May, the children’s father also joined the hunt.
The children arrived in the capital Bogotá early on Saturday for medical treatment. The rescue effort, Operation Hope, ramped up rapidly, eventually encompassing 150 soldiers and 200 volunteers from local Indigenous communities and a team of 10 Belgian shepherd dogs, covering an area of more than 323 sq km (125 sq miles). The search continues for Wilson, one of the dogs who disappeared during the operation.
The four siblings were in a Cessna 206 flying from the town of San José del Guaviare to Araracuara, in Amazonas province, on the morning of 1 May when its pilot issued a mayday alert due to engine failure. As the days stretched into weeks, and the weeks into a second month, some in Colombia began to wonder if they were deluding themselves.
Two weeks later the aircraft was found, nose planted deep in the jungle floor in the province of Caquetá, 175km (109 miles) south of San José del Guaviare. Three adult bodies, including that of the children’s 33-year-old mother, were discovered at the site, but there was no sign of the children. Some of the rescuers went home, a combined command headquarters was dismantled. But just over a week before their discovery, Brigadier General Pedro Sanchez said he was convinced the children were alive, because bodies would be easier to find than a small group who were moving through the forest.
In the days that followed a glimmer of hope emerged. About 500 metres from the crash site, search teams found footprints, chewed fruits and used nappies. The rescue effort, named Operation Hope, was quickly ramped up, eventually encompassing 150 soldiers and 200 volunteers from local Indigenous communities as well as a team of 10 Belgian shepherd dogs, covering an area of more than 323 sq km (125 sq miles). The search continues for Wilson, one of the dogs, which disappeared during the operation. “This isn’t a search for a needle in a haystack, it’s a tiny flea in a vast carpet, because they keep moving,” he told Colombian journalists, “Their bodies haven’t appeared, and I’m sure that we would have already found them if they were dead.”
The search team conducted multiple sweeps from the air, attaching a long-range speaker to a helicopter on which they played a message from the children’s grandmother, in the Huitoto language, telling them the search was under way and to stay where they were. Then on Friday, about 4pm local time, army radios crackled into life. “Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle”. It was the army code for a child found alive; repeated four times it meant all four had survived, in a remarkable feat of resilience.
The children were on the move, however – they were found with their feet wrapped in strips of cloth – and this complicated the search. Initial hopes of finding the children alive were rapidly diminishing. The search team came across abandoned camps of rebel groups and some of the search team withdrew due to the end of a ceasefire with another group in the region. The number of flights were scaled back and the combined command post in San José del Guaviare disbanded. Although malnourished, and covered in insect bites, none were in a serious condition. The military tweeted pictures of a group of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children, who were wrapped in thermal blankets, surrounded by the team that found them, with Cristian cradled in the arms of a rescuer.
But two days before their discovery, Brigadier General Pedro Sanchez said he still believed the children were alive and that the difficulty finding them was due to their movement through the forest. “This isn’t a needle in a haystack, it’s a tiny flea in a rug, because they keep moving,” he told local press, “but if, God forbid, they were dead we would have already have found them, because they would be still.” “They’ve given us an example of total survival that will go down in history,” said Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, calling it “a joy for the whole country!”
Around 5pm on Friday, the army radio crackled with shouts of “Miracle! Miracle! Miracle! Miracle!” A group of 10 soldiers and eight Indigenous volunteers had discovered a fresh set of tracks and followed them to where the children were in a clearing. The education the children got from their grandmother, a respected elder in the Araracuara indigenous territory, was almost certainly vital to their survival.“This is a virgin forest, thick and dangerous,” John Moreno, an Indigenous leader from nearby Vaupés, told local media outlet Cambio.
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. “They would have needed to draw on ancestral knowledge, in order to survive.”
In addition to evading jungle predators, the children had survived heavy storms, and the area also hosts armed groups.
Sanchez said rescue teams had covered more than 2,600 kilometres on foot in the search for the children, and described the challenging conditions of their mission.
“The men walked 10 metres apart. In virgin forest, with trees 40 or 50 metres high, where the sun barely reaches the forest floor, a man can loose himself within 20 or 30 metres. If someone is separated, the forest swallows them up,” Sanchez said.
The children were found with rags wrapped around their feet, to protect them as they moved through the muddy forest floor, and rescuers had to winch them up to helicopters as the vegetation was too dense for aircraft to land.
After their initial helicopter evacuation to the town of San José del Guaviare, the children were taken on a military medical plane to Bogotá, where four ambulances were waiting to take them to hospital for specialist care. An uncle and their grandparents are among relatives now waiting to be reunited with the children.
“I thank the president for his help and the Indigenous people who collaborated in the search for our children. I don’t know how to thank them, because the word thank you is not enough,” Narcizo Mucutuy, the children’s grandfather, told Caracol TV station.
Rumours initially emerged about the children’s whereabouts on 18 May, when Petro tweeted that the children had been found. He then deleted the message, claiming he had been misinformed by a government agency.Rumours initially emerged about the children’s whereabouts on 18 May, when Petro tweeted that the children had been found. He then deleted the message, claiming he had been misinformed by a government agency.
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.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.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.”“The jungle saved them,” Petro said. “They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.”