(CNN) – Eating cassava flour helped save the lives of four children who were found alive in the Amazon jungle more than a month after their plane crashed, according to an official with Colombia’s military special forces.
The children ate “three kilograms of farina,” a coarse cassava flour commonly used by indigenous tribes in the Amazon, spokesman Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez Suárez said.
“Days after the accident, they ate the farina that they brought there … but (finally) they ran out of food and decided to find somewhere to stay alive,” Suárez said.
“They were malnourished but fully conscious and lucid when we found them,” he added.
“Their indigenous origins allowed them to gain some immunity to the diseases of the jungle, and the fact that they knew about the jungle itself—what to eat and what not to eat—as well as the fact that they could find water held they alive, which they didn’t.” would have been possible if they weren’t used to such a hostile environment.
The four children – Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 13, Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4 and baby Cristin Ranoque Mucutuy – are currently recovering at a hospital in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, after being transferred there by plane on Saturday Colombian Air Force ambulances, authorities said.
According to medical reports, they are dehydrated and still “can’t eat” but are fine and out of danger. “The task now is to stabilize them,” Colombian Defense Minister Iván Velásquez told reporters gathered in front of the hospital.
The boys’ mother, Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia, was killed in the May Day plane crash, leaving them alone and abandoned in the Amazon jungle. Pilot Hernando Murcia Morales and Yarupari tribal leader Herman Mendoza Hernández also died in the accident.
The children’s disappearance prompted a major search by the army, involving more than 100 Colombian special forces soldiers and more than 70 indigenous scouts.
Ultimately, all four were found in an area cleared of trees.
The children told authorities they found a dog, a Belgian shepherd named Wilson, who belonged to a special forces unit. According to Suárez, the dog disappeared on May 18. “The kids told us they had been with Wilson for three or four days and found him to be quite thin,” he added.
The hope that the children would survive faded as the weeks went by.
Their relatives reported that they spent “many sleepless nights in worry” until they found the children.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who visited the children in hospital on Saturday, welcomed their return and said their survival “will go down in history”.
“They are children of the jungle and now they are children of Colombia,” Petro said.
With background stories from CNN’s Caitlin Hu, Hira Humayun, Karol Suarez and Chris Lau.