BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Four indigenous children survived a plane crash in the Amazon that killed three adults, then braved the jungle for 40 days before being found alive by Colombian soldiers and forced the normally opposing military and the nation indigenous people to cooperate.
Cassava flour and a certain familiarity with the fruits of the rainforest were key to the children’s extraordinary survival in an area teeming with snakes, mosquitoes and other animals. The Huitoto tribesmen, aged 13, 9 and 4 years and 11 months, are expected to remain in hospital for at least two weeks for treatment after their rescue on Friday.
Family members, President Gustavo Petro, and government and military officials met the children at the hospital in the capital, Bogotá, on Saturday. Defense Minister Iván Velásquez told reporters the children were being rehydrated and could not yet eat.
“But in general, the condition of the children is acceptable,” Velásquez said. They were traveling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane crashed in the early hours of May 1st.
The Cessna, a single-engine propeller plane, was carrying three adults and four children when the pilot called an emergency over an engine failure. The light aircraft disappeared from radar shortly afterwards and the search for survivors began.
“When the plane crashed, they got a farina (from the rubble) and survived with it,” the children’s uncle, Fidencio Valencia, told reporters outside the hospital. Fariña is a cassava flour eaten by people in the Amazon.
“After the farina was consumed, they started eating seeds,” Valencia said.
The timing was good for the children. Astrid Cáceres, director of the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare, said the youngsters were also able to eat fruit because “it was harvested in the jungle”.
Air Force video released Friday showed a helicopter using lines to pull the youths up because it could not land in the dense rainforest where they were found. The military on Friday tweeted images showing a group of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children wrapped in thermal blankets. One of the soldiers held a bottle to the youngest boy’s lips.
General Pedro Sanchez, who was in charge of the rescue operations, said the children were found five kilometers (3 miles) from the crash site in a small forest clearing. He said rescue teams got within 20 to 50 meters (66 to 164 feet) of where the children were found several times, but missed them.
“The minors were already very weak,” Sanchez said. “And surely their strength was only enough to breathe, or to reach a small fruit to feed themselves, or to drink a drop of water in the jungle.”
Calling the children an “example of survival,” Petro predicted their saga “will stay in history.”
Two weeks after the crash, on May 16, a search team found the plane in a dense patch of rainforest and recovered the bodies of the three adults on board, but the young children were nowhere to be found.
Sensing they might still be alive, the Colombian army stepped up the hunt, flying 150 soldiers with dogs into the area, where fog and thick foliage severely limited visibility. Dozens of volunteers from indigenous tribes also took part in the search.
Soldiers with helicopters threw boxes of food into the jungle hoping it would help feed the children. Planes flying over the area fired flares at night to help search for crews on the ground, and rescuers used loudspeakers to broadcast a message recorded by the siblings’ grandmother urging them to go to one location remain.
The announcement of their rescue came shortly after President Gustavo Petro signed a ceasefire with representatives of the National Liberation Army rebel group. In line with his administration’s messages highlighting his efforts to end internal conflicts, he stressed the joint work of the military and indigenous communities in finding the children.
“The Meeting of Knowledge: Indigenous and Military,” he tweeted. “Here is another path for Colombia: I believe this is the true path of peace.”
Damaris Mucutuy, an aunt of the children, told a radio station that “the children are fine” despite being dehydrated and suffering from insect bites. She added that the children had been offered psychiatric services.
Cáceres told reporters officials had reached an agreement with the children’s families to allow “spiritual work” in the jungle and at the hospital “when immediate emergency response is not needed.” She said musicians and musical instruments relevant to the children’s culture are allowed in the hospital.
Officials commended the courage of the eldest of the children, a girl who they said had some knowledge of surviving in the rainforest, in guiding the children through the ordeal.
Before her rescue, rumors circulated about her whereabouts. So much so that on May 18 Petro tweeted that the children had been found. He then deleted the message, claiming he had been misinformed by a government agency.
The children told officers they spent some time with the dog, but then it disappeared. This was a rescue dog that soldiers took into the jungle. The military were still searching for the dog Saturday, a Belgian shepherd named Wilson.
Petro said he believed for a while the children were rescued by one of the nomadic tribes who still roam the remote area where the plane crashed and have little contact with authorities.
As the search progressed, the soldiers found small clues leading them to believe the children were still alive, including two footprints, a baby bottle, diapers and pieces of fruit that appeared to have been bitten by people.
“The jungle saved her,” said Petro. “They are children of the jungle, and now they are children of Colombia too.”
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Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.