After 40 days in the Colombian rainforest, all four children missing since their plane crashed on May 1 have been found alive, according to the Colombian president.
“They have achieved an example of complete survival that will go down in history,” President Gustavo Petro said at a news conference on Friday evening.
When rescuers arrived at the wreckage last month, the bodies of the three adults on board were found, but there was no sign of the four children believed to have been on board.
In a case that has captivated the nation, local indigenous communities from remote areas, along with the Colombian military, began scouring the jungle for children aged 13, 9, 4 and 1. .
Mr. Petro said the children were “weak” and were receiving medical care.
The Defense Department said the children were initially treated by combat medics from special operations forces deployed in the search, and then transferred to a military base in the city of San Francisco. José del Guaviare, where they are in stable condition. declare.
Early Saturday morning, some children were photographed carried on a stretcher from a plane that had landed at a military airport in the capital, Bogotá. The domestic media reported that all four were then taken to military hospital treatment.
“We want to share the happiness of all Colombians with the true miracle we have known tonight,” Defense Minister Iván Velásquez said in a video posted on social media.
As of Saturday morning, it was not clear who found the children or how they managed to survive for so long in a dense forest where heavy rains are frequent and jaguars and venomous snakes are present.
“It was a real miracle. That will be news for years to come, said Pedro Arenas, a human rights activist in San José del Guaviare. “After 40 days, that is pretty unbelievable news. So there’s a lot of fun, there’s really happiness.”
The children, members of the Huitoto indigenous community, traveled with their mother and an indigenous leader from the small Amazon community in Araracuara, Colombia, to San José del Guaviare, a small city in the region. Central Colombia along the Guaviare River. The pilot reported an engine failure and declared an emergency before the plane disappeared from radar around 7:30 a.m. on May 1.
The Colombian Air Force and other branches of the military soon deployed search and rescue planes and helicopters, as well as land and river teams. Indigenous communities in the area have joined the effort.
Using a loudspeaker that sounded loud enough to be heard within a radius of about a mile, they played a recording spoken by the children’s grandmother in Huitoto, their native language, to the children. kids that stay put and people are looking for them. .
The conflicting details of the case have confused and angered many Colombians. On May 17, Mr. Petro announced on Twitter that the children had been found alive. But the next day, he withdraw the good newssaid that the nation’s child welfare agency, the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, had received incorrect information.
Over the past few weeks, authorities have said they have reason to believe the children are still alive, pointing to the footprints, diapers and shoes found during the search.
“They defend themselves. It was their knowledge from the Indigenous families, the knowledge of how to live in the forest, that saved them,” Mr. Petro said at the press conference. “They are the children of the jungle. And now they are children of Colombia.”
Federico Rios And Mike Ives contribution report.
