By Steve Hopkins
It has been described as a remarkable ‘example of survival’ that will ‘remain in history’.
Four children have been found alive five weeks after the plane they were travelling in crashed in the Colombian jungle.
The kids, siblings aged 13, nine, four, and 11 months, were rescued by the Colombian military not far from where the Cessna 206 crashed on 1 May.
Three adults on board, their mother and two pilots, died.
Despite the amount of time that had passed, officials had remained hopeful the children were alive.
This was encouraged by searchers finding discarded fruit that the youngsters had eaten to survive. They had also found shelters made with jungle vegetation.
Colombian President Gustav Petro said: “A joy for the whole country! The four children who were lost… in the Colombian jungle appeared alive.”
¡Una alegría para todo el país! Aparecieron con vida los 4 niños que estaban perdidos hace 40 días en la selva colombiana. pic.twitter.com/cvADdLbCpm
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) June 9, 2023
This is the second time he has announced that the children have been found. Two weeks after their disappearance, Petro apologised after incorrectly announcing that the kids had been located.
The youngsters are now being checked by doctors in the capital of Bogota.
The military tweeted pictures showing a group of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children, who were wrapped in thermal blankets.
The children were travelling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane crashed on May 1 near the Guaviare province.
They are members of the Huitoto people and officials have said the oldest children in the group had some knowledge of how to survive in the rainforest, Sky News reported.
“The jungle saved them. They are children of the jungle and now they are also children of Colombia,” Petro said.
He added that the children’s experience was an “example of survival” and predicted their saga “will remain in history.”
The children have been named as 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, nine-year-old Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, four-year-old Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy and 11-month-old Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy.
Their mother Magdalena Mucutuy was reportedly travelling with her children to Bogotá to meet her husband Manuel Ranoque and start a new life together.
According to the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, Ranoque, who is related to a local political leader, previously lived in the indigenous reserve of Puerto Sábalo with his family. However, he had to reportedly flee the community on foot after receiving threats from crime groups in the area.
Travelling through the jungle, Ranoque is said to have eventually arrived in Bogotá.
It is stated that there he found a job and saved money for a month and a half in order to afford his family’s transport from their remote community to the capital of Colombia.
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