Four children found alive in Amazon after 40 days
Written by Jessica Lal on June 13, 2023
Four children have been found alive after surviving a plane crash and spending weeks fending for themselves in Colombia’s Amazon jungle.
Colombia’s president said the rescue of the siblings, aged 13, nine, four and one, was “a joy for the whole country”.
The children’s mother and two pilots were killed when their light aircraft crashed in the jungle on 1 May.
The missing children became the focus of a huge rescue operation involving dozens of soldiers and local people.
President Gustavo Petro said finding the group was a “magical day”, adding: “They were alone, they themselves achieved an example of total survival which will remain in history.”
The children had being lifted into a helicopter in the dark above the tall trees of the jungle. They have been flown to the nation’s capital , where ambulances have taken them to hospital for further medical treatment.
The children’s grandmother, Fatima Valencia, said after their rescue: “I am very grateful, and to mother earth as well, that they were set free.”
She said the eldest of the four siblings was used to looking after the other three when their mother was at work, and that this helped them survive in the jungle.
“She gave them flour and cassava bread, any fruit in the bush, they know what they must consume,” Ms Valencia said in footage obtained by EVN.
source : BBC