[1/3] Colombian military soldiers pose for a photo after rescuing child survivors from a Cessna 206 plane that crashed May 1 in the Caqueta jungle, on the Caqueta-Guaviare border, in this handout photo posted May 9 June 2023. Presidency/Handout via Portal
BOGOTA, June 9 (Portal) – Four children from an indigenous community in Colombia were found alive in the dense jungle in the south of the country on Friday more than five weeks after the plane they were traveling on crashed, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said .
The siblings were rescued by the military near the border between Colombia’s Caqueta and Guaviare provinces, near where the light aircraft crashed.
The plane — a Cessna 206 — was carrying seven people on a route between Araracuara, in Amazonas province, and San Jose del Guaviare, a town in Guaviare province, when it issued an emergency alert over an engine failure in the early hours of May 1.
Three adults, including the pilot and the children’s mother, Magdalena Mucutuy, perished in the crash and their bodies were found on the plane. The four siblings aged 13, 9, 4 years and a baby who is now 12 months old survived the impact.
Narcizo Mucutuy, the grandfather of the three girls and one boy, told reporters he was delighted at the news of their rescue.
“As a grandfather to my grandchildren who disappeared into the yari jungle, I am very happy at this moment,” he said.
Photos shared by the Colombian military showed a group of soldiers with the four children in the middle of the jungle.
“A joy for the whole country! The four children who were … lost in the Colombian jungle appeared to be alive,” Petro said in a message via Twitter.
Petro initially reported in a message on Twitter that children had been found on May 17, but later deleted the post, saying the information was unconfirmed.
“They were together, they’re weak, let’s let the doctors judge them. They found them, that makes me very happy,” Petro told journalists on Friday, adding that the children defended themselves in the middle of the jungle.
Rescuers, assisted by search dogs, had found discarded fruit that the children ate to survive and improvised shelters made from jungle vegetation.
Planes and helicopters from the Colombian army and air force were involved in the rescue operations.
Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; writing by Oliver Griffin; Edited by Jamie Freed
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Luis Jaime Acosta