Miracle rescue after 40 days: you should know that from the jungle children from Colombia

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Her story went around the world: after a plane crash, four missing children made their way through the Colombian jungle for 40 days – and survived. On Friday, the siblings were finally located and taken by helicopter and plane to the Colombian capital Bogota. Her rescue bordered on a miracle and delighted the whole world.

Now more and more details about the brave jungle kids and their rescue are coming to light. Blick provides the most important questions and answers about the case.

The four children boarded a Cessna 206 propeller plane with their mother on May 1. After initially saying that the family wanted to visit a relative, Manuel Ranoque, the father of the two youngest survivors, now claims the opposite. Accordingly, the family boarded the plane as they wanted to flee for their lives. This is reported by the New York Times.

They fled from an armed group that recruited children by force under threat of violence. As the group had taken control of their home region in southern Colombia, the family boarded a plane to take their children to safety. “I was very afraid that the children would be recruited,” says Ranoque.

A few minutes after takeoff from deep Amazon, the pilot reported engine problems. Then one thing led to another: the plane crashed into the treetops, the engine and propeller were ripped off the machine, and finally the plane fell almost vertically in the administrative area of ​​Caquetá.

The children’s mother, Magdalena Mucutui Valencia, died in the accident. The pilot and an indigenous leader also died in the crash. The wreckage and bodies of the plane were discovered two weeks after the crash. Only the indigenous children survived the plane crash. 160 army soldiers and 70 indigenous people then searched for the children.

The fact that they came out alive after 40 days in the jungle without food or drink has something to do with their origins, according to the grandparents. Lesly (13), Soleiny (9), Tien (4) and Cristin (1) belong to the indigenous people of the Huitoto (in German: Witoto). “They are children of the bush,” said the children’s grandfather, Filencio Valencia. They would know how to survive in the jungle. So they first ate some of the flour that was still on board. Then they would have fed on seeds.

Grandmother Fátima Valencia says: “We indigenous people learn from an early age which are edible and which are not.” Although the children are familiar with the jungle, their survival is not self-evident: not only snakes, jaguars, cougars and other predators are at home in the area of ​​the crash, but armed drug gangs are also active there.

The children are now on the mend. They have been in a military hospital in Bogota since their rescue. In the meantime, photos have even appeared of them in their hospital bed. They still look a bit emaciated and exhausted, but happy.

According to Colombian Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez, 68, the children were dehydrated when they were rescued and cannot yet eat solid food. However, their health status is “acceptable” and they are “out of danger”. According to the army doctor, apart from a few skin wounds and insect bites, they suffered no external damage. The children stay in the hospital for two to three weeks to get used to solid food again.

Since the children lost their mother in the accident and come from two different fathers, their grandparents are expected to take care of them. Getting custody of the children is entirely in their best interest: “It will be my pride. My daughter will keep an eye on me, she will encourage me mentally and give me strength,” says the grandmother.

Source: Blick