“Operation Hoffnung”: Soldiers find further traces of children in Colombia’s jungle Swiss operation “Ninja Turtle” exposes thousands of pedophiles worldwide

Nearly a month after a small plane crashed in the Colombian rainforest, soldiers have uncovered more clues while searching for four missing children. The search teams discovered broken branches and opened food packages, a military spokesman said on Tuesday (local time) on TV station Caracol. Soldiers had previously found a footprint that could belong to a 13-year-old girl who is one of four missing siblings. “We have to find them,” said the commander of the search operation “Operation Hope”, General Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez, in a broken voice on RCN television.

The children, aged 13, 9, 4 and one year old, crashed on May 1 in a Cessna 206 propeller plane in the Caquetá department in the south of the country. Her mother, the pilot and an indigenous leader were killed in the accident. While searching for the children, the soldiers found shoes, diapers, a feeding bottle, a shelter made of leaves and branches, and half-eaten fruit. However, the rainforest in the region is very dense, which makes searching for the missing persons much more difficult.

The children belong to an indigenous community and, according to media reports, traveled with their mother to visit their father, who had fled the region after continued threats from armed groups. Their knowledge of the region may have helped them survive in the jungle after the crash. (oee/sda/dpa)