They were missing and there was little hope of finding them alive. Four children lost themselves in the middle of the Amazon jungle for 17 days. The day before, authorities had found the bodies of the three adults who had been traveling with them in a light aircraft that crashed into the air. But no sign of the brothers, 11 months, 3, 9 and 13 years old. The authorities used the grandmother’s voice in audio recordings to call her through the thicket of the jungle. This Wednesday it was announced that the four survived. President Gustavo Petro was the one who broke the news: “A joy for the country.”
According to government sources, it was a search team from the Cachiporro community in Caquetá that found the children. They belong to the Huitoto community. The armed forces hoped to find them when they found a teapot among the plants. That is the “reason that encourages our commandos to continue this work and locate them,” the authorities said. Lesly Mucutuy (13 years old), Soleiny Mucutuy (9 years old), Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy (4 years old) and Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy (11 months old) struggled to survive.
After an arduous search effort by our armed forces, we have found alive the four children who had disappeared in the Guaviare plane crash. A joy for the country.
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) May 17, 2023
The plane that crashed was en route from Araracuara (Caquetá) to San José del Guaviare. At the wheel: the pilot Hernando Murcia Morales; as co-pilot, the indigenous leader Hermán Mendoza Hernández; and Mucutuy Valencia, the children’s mother. Shortly after 7:30 a.m. on May 1, he reported an engine failure. The last recorded location was about 175 km from the target, on the Apaporis River, in the middle of the Amazon jungle. Since then, their whereabouts have remained unknown until authorities found the remains of the plane and the bodies of the three adults this Tuesday, more than two weeks later. No sign of minors.
The father, Manuel Ranoque, has been looking for them non-stop during this time. “I’ve experienced that many times. I had a sister who was lost for almost a month and I struggled to find her because she is a mute special sister and in the same way she returned. That’s why I think that at this stage the effort will not be in vain,” he said in Noticias Caracol. This information explains that Ranoque fled Araracuara, Caquetá, due to threats from FARC dissidents. From his exile he sent money to get his wife and four children out of there and bring them to Bogotá.
This morning, Juan José López, director of air navigation at Aerocivil, told Caracol Radio’s Hoy por Hoy that there were clues that made it possible to believe in the possibility of finding the children alive. The plane’s door was open when they found it, and far from the spot, the bottle the baby was believed to have been fed with was found, along with the remains of fruit eaten less than three days earlier.
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The official announced that the search for the missing children was intensifying, although he recognized that weather conditions combined with the natural difficulties of a jungle environment made the job difficult. This Wednesday, however, conditions improved, allowing for an overflight of the area where the Abyela’s voice was recorded on loudspeakers to try to locate the children. It turned out that the children were alive. It remains to tell the story of how they survived.
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