Four children who survived 40 days stranded in the jungle are out of hospital
Four children who survived a plane crash and 40 days lost in the Colombian jungle have been released from hospital following a “total recovery”.
Father of the two youngest Manuel Ranoque, 32, said the children are in custody of the Institute of Family Welfare, a government facility taking care of the vulnerable young and elderly, according to the Daily Mail.
After the children were released from the military hospital where they spent 6 weeks, Ranoque said: “They are totally recovered, they are in good health. I’m very pleased.”
The Huitoto Indigenous children were involved in a plane crash on May 1, when engine problems were reported as they flew over a remote part of the Amazon rainforest known as the Araracuara.
Tragically, their mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia - an indigenous leader - passed away following the crash. She survived for four days with the children, before telling them to “get out of here”.
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The children were found deep in the Amazon jungle. (AP)“You guys are going to see the kind of man your dad is, and he's going to show you the same kind of great love that I have shown you,” she reportedly said before her passing.
Lesly Jacombaire Mucutuy, 13, Soleiny Jacombaire Mucutuy, nine, Tien Noriel Ranoque Mucutuy, four and one-year-old Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy, then roamed the jungle for over a month.
They survived on seeds, fruits, roots and plants which they knew to be edible from their upbringing in the Amazon. Their local knowledge of the region was the key reason for their survival, according to the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia.
“The survival of the children is a sign of the knowledge and relationship with the natural environment that is taught starting in the mother's womb,” they said.
The children were airlifted out of the jungle after being found, 40 days after the crash. (Colombian Air Force/AFP via Gett)On May 15, the bodies of three adults - Magdalena, the pilot, and one other, were found along with the wreckage.
But the children were nowhere to be seen. Pieces of half-eaten fruit around the plane wreck suggested the children had survived and were in the jungle.
200 soldiers and indigenous people combed an area double the size of Washington D.C., and the air force dumped thousands of flyers telling the kids to stay put, along with survival instructions.
Lesly Jacombaire Mucutuy, 13, Soleiny Jacombaire Mucutuy, nine, Tien Noriel Ranoque Mucutuy, four, and Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy, one, roamed the jungle for over a month.They also dumped food parcels, and shone powerful light beams into the jungle to catch the children’s eye.
Indigenous communities had been holding traditional ceremonies asking the jungle to give up the children.
And the jungle continued to leave clues that the children were still fighting for survival, including scissors shoes, hair ties and a baby’s bottle found on the jungle floor.
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Search dogs found a pair of scissors which had been left by the children. (Colombian army/AFP via Getty Ima)It was the oldest of the children Lesly who led their survival, creating a shelter from which they gathered food and kept each other safe from the snakes, jaguars and drug gangs which roam that region of the Amazon. Two of the children, Tien, 5, and Cristin, 1, even had their birthdays during the staggering ordeal.
And on June 9, after 40 days of survival through torrential downpours in the open jungle, the children’s shelter was finally found - with all four children still alive.
They were airlifted to the military hospital in Colombia’s capital, Bogota, from where they have just been released.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro described the rescue effort as the “meeting of Indigenous and military knowledge”, showing a “different path towards a new Colombia”.
He said: “The jungle saved them. They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.”
Emotions ran high after the successful rescue effort. (Colombian Presidency/AFP via Get)General Pedro Sanchez, who led the rescue mission, described it as a “miracle, miracle, miracle”, and credited the indigenous people with the children’s survival.
Army chief Helder Giraldo said on Twitter : “Something that seemed impossible was achieved.”
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