Footprints and lost shoes.. clues the children were alive
4 plane crash kids found after 6wks in jungle
RESCUERS share the moment they made their most precious find – four children lost for nearly six weeks in the Amazon rainforest after a plane crash that killed their mother.
As the kids, aged one to 13, were cared for yesterday it emerged they survived by living like “children of the jungle”, leaving a trail that made sure they were found.
Footprints, shoes, nappies, halfeaten fruit and a baby’s bottle were all clues they were still alive and wandering around somewhere in the dense rainforest in Colombia.
Shelters made of jungle vegetation also spurred on the search for the Mucutuy siblings – Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, four-year-old Tien and baby Cristin, whose first birthday passed while they were missing.
And the three sisters and their brother were finally found by a group of soldiers and volunteers, who shared the amazing news yesterday and posted pictures online.
They showed the children wrapped in thermal blankets while one of the soldiers cradled the baby Cristin.
Tragically, their mum Magdalena
Mucutuy, died along with the pilot and another adult when the Cessna 206 crashed on May 1. The family was travelling from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane went down.
They are members of the Huitoto people and officials said the older children had some knowledge of how to survive in the rainforest.
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro added: “Their learning from
indigenous families and their learning of living in the jungle has saved them.”
He said they had demonstrated an example of “total survival that will be remembered in history”, adding: “They are children of the jungle and now they are children of Colombia.”
Footage showed the youngsters being winched up to a helicopter, as it could not land in the jungle, to be airlifted to capital Bogota for checks by doctors. Relatives in the city of
Villavicencio are now waiting to be reunited with their loved ones – and grandmother María Fátima Valencia vowed “to hug all of them”.
Grandad Fidencio said: “This situation was like being in the dark, we walked for the sake of walking. Living for the sake of living because the hope of finding them kept us alive.
“When we found the children we felt joy. We don’t know what to do but we are grateful to God.”