Father of children rescued in Colombian jungle condemns threats by FARC dissidents

Manuel Ranoque, father four children rescued on Friday after the ordeal of being lost in the jungle for almost a month and a half The Colombian, this Sunday, condemned that he was the military “target” of the Carolina Ramírez front, the extinct FARC dissidents, led by the alias Iván Mordisco, who recently massacred four indigenous children for refusing forced conscription. These events forced President Gustavo Petr to end the ceasefire that this group maintained with the government.

Ranoque, who fled his community because of these kinds of threats — his wife and children, in fact, boarded the plane to meet him — assures that he has some audio recordings in which the dissidents warn him that they will send someone to look for him in Bogotá. “I fear for my life, but above all for the life of my children,” said Ranoque. in front of the media.

The father of the four rescued brothers also said that the children’s mother was alive four days after the accident the plane crashed into the thicket. This was confirmed yesterday after hearing the story from her elder daughter Lesly. “Mom was alive for four days. That’s why he tells them before he dies: “Leave and you will see who your father is,” said the man in statements in front of the military hospital in Bogota, where minors are recovering, whose situation is still stable. The children are recovering from dehydration, but still cannot eat solid food.

Ranoque does not know the details of how her children managed to save their lives. It is not easy to talk to the little ones, he explains, after 40 days in which they could not eat well. “I didn’t have a chance to get information,” he said.

Rescuers know this, during In the first days, the children ate “fariña” or cassava flour, food produced by Amazonian indigenous peoples. When they ran out, they started consuming small seed-like fruits of a passion fruit-like food. The role of 13-year-old Lesly was crucial in shutting out the toxic elements. Children from indigenous communities are taught about survival from an early age, and in the case of these four siblings, access to water that fell from trees due to rain in a region where it rains 16 hours a day was essential. The brothers were saved by the same thing that made the rescue difficult.

The Colombian army is now continuing the search for Wilson, a Belgian Malinois who took care of children in the Colombian jungle, and whom the country wants to recognize as a national hero.