Following their survival in an aircraft accident and weeks spent on their own in Colombia’s Amazon jungle, four kids have been found alive.
The brothers and sisters, ages 13, 9, 4, and 1, were saved, according to Colombia’s president, who called it “a joy for the whole country.”
In a light aircraft crash in the woods on May 1, the mother of the kids and two pilots perished.
The missing youngsters became the center of a massive rescue mission that involved numerous military personnel and locals.
Finding the group, according to President Gustavo Petro, was a “wonderful day,” and he added: “They were alone; they themselves achieved a total survival that will stay in history.
“These kids are today’s Colombian kids, the kids of peace.”
The siblings, according to Mr. Petro, were receiving medical care, and when he spoke to their grandfather, he was assured that “the mother jungle returned them.”
The youngsters were airlifted to Bogota, the capital city of the country, where ambulances took them to a hospital for more medical care.
The Cessna 206 aircraft that the kids and their mother were riding in when they were killed was on route from Araracuara, in the province of Amazonas, to San José del Guaviare when it sent out a mayday signal owing to an engine failure.
The soldiers discovered the bodies of the three adults at the crash site, but it looked like the children had escaped the debris and were now lost in the rain forest, looking for assistance.
Rescuers launched a large search and in May found a makeshift shelter, a pair of scissors, a hair tie, and a child’s drinking bottle.
Additionally, tiny footprints were found, which convinced search workers that the kids were still alive in the rainforest, which is inhabited by predators like jaguars and snakes.
Members of the children’s community, who are indigenous Huitoto people, believed that the children’s familiarity with fruits and their capacity for jungle survival would increase their chances of surviving.
Indigenous people helped in the search, and helicopters transmitted a message from the children’s grandmother, recorded in Huitoto, pleading with them to stop moving so they would be easier to find.
Last month, a tweet from the president of Colombia’s account misinformedly declared that the kids had been located, drawing outrage from some quarters.
The information, which his office had been provided by Colombia’s child protection department, was removed from the tweet the following day, he claimed, because it could not be verified.
