Four Colombian children survive 40 days in Amazon after plane crash

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embraced by joy President Gustavo Petro (center) embraces the grandfathers of rescued children at a military hospital in Bogota, Colombia on the 10th. AFP Yonhap News

All adults including mother died
Indigenous people of the tropical rainforests of South America
The first to know how to distinguish mushrooms
Obtain cassava flour, fruit, etc.
Take care of your siblings in an extreme environment

Four Colombian children have been found unharmed after 40 days of going missing after a light plane crash in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. According to Spanish-speaking media outlets EFE and El Pais, four Colombian children who went missing in the Amazon jungle on the 1st of last month (local time) were found on the 9th, 40 days after the crash. It is known that the accident occurred due to an engine failure while taking a plane to meet their father who lives in another area.

The children’s identities are Leslie Mukutui, 13, Soleini Mukutui, 9, Thien Noriel Ronoke Mukutui, 4, and Christine Neriman Ranoke Mukutui, 1, whose mother was on the plane with them. All three adults, including the driver and the pilot, were killed. The youngest, who was less than a year old at the time of the disappearance, met his first birthday in the jungle.

When the bodies of the children were not found at the plane crash site, Colombian authorities conducted a large-scale rescue operation involving 5 helicopters, detection dogs, hundreds of soldiers and 200 local residents to find the missing people. Hopes that the children might be alive grew as searchers scoured the woods near the crash site, finding baby bottles, hair ties, nappies and pieces of leftover fruit.

When the children were found safely, President Gustavo Petro said, “The joy of the whole country” and “their story will go down in history.” A military spokesman said the children were “very weak” at the time of their discovery.

Attention is also focusing on how these siblings were able to survive for over a month without adults in the Amazon, where food was scarce and venomous snakes were infested.

It is known that the eldest, Leslie, took care of her younger siblings and played a key role in their survival. They come from the indigenous Huitoto people of South America, and have lived with their families in Araracuara, in the rainforest region of the Amazonas. According to her children’s uncle, Leslie has known ‘secrets of the jungle’ since childhood, such as finding her way by looking at the sunlight through the trees and distinguishing between edible and poisonous mushrooms. Through this, El Pais analyzed that it seems that Leslie survived in the extreme environment and was able to safely rescue all of her younger siblings.

The children’s uncle, Fidencio Valencia, said: “When the plane crashed, they took the parinha (from the wreckage) and they survived with it.” Parinha is a garuda of cassava, an elongated sweet potato-shaped crop eaten in the Amazon region. Valencia said the children later started eating fruits and seeds. Survival kits dropped from the air by rescue authorities during search operations are also said to have helped the children survive.

A group of Amazonian indigenous people in Colombia tweeted: “The survival of the children indicates that they had knowledge of the natural environment learned and practiced from their mothers from a very early age.” Carlos Pérez, a professor of tropical forest ecology at the University of East Anglia, UK, also said, “Western children of the same age would have died.”

Government officials, including President Petro and Defense Minister Ivan Velázquez Gomes, visited the hospital where the children were being treated on the 10th. All four children are said to be in good health. General Carlos Rincon Arango, a doctor at the Central Military Hospital in Bogota, Colombia, said, “The children suffered only relatively minor injuries, such as scratches.”