Cassava flour and some knowledge of the rainforest fruit were key to four children’s remarkable 40-day survival in the Amazon jungle after the plane they were in crashed, the children’s uncle said.
“When the plane crashed, they pulled a farinha (from the wreckage) and that’s how they survived,” the children’s uncle, Fidencio Valencia, told reporters outside the hospital in Bogotá, where they are expected to stay for at least two weeks. Fariña is cassava flour that people eat in the Amazon region.
“Once the farina ran out, they started eating the seeds,” Valencia said.
Damaris Mukutui, the children’s aunt, told a radio station that “the children are fine” although they are dehydrated and have insect bites. She added that the children had been offered psychiatric services.
The timing of their trial was in favor of the children. Astrid Cáceres, head of Colombia’s Institute for Family Welfare, said the youth also had the opportunity to eat fruit because “the jungle is in harvest.”
General Pedro Sánchez, who was in charge of rescue operations, said rescue teams came within 20 to 50 meters (66 to 164 feet) of where the children were found on several occasions but missed them.
“The minors were already very weak,” Sanchez said. “And surely their strength was only enough to breathe or reach a small fruit to eat or drink a drop of water in the jungle,” he said.
The children – members of the Huitoto people, aged 13, 9 and 4 plus an 11-month-old baby – were traveling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araraquara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane crashed in the early hours of May 1. They were found alive by a military tracking dog on Friday after spending weeks in an area where snakes, mosquitoes and other animals abound.
The children told officers they spent some time with a dog, but then it disappeared. Troopers were still searching for the dog, a Belgian shepherd named Wilson, as of Saturday.
President Gustavo Petro, who joyfully announced the opening of the children on Friday, met the children on Saturday at the Bogotá hospital. Defense Minister Ivan Velazquez told reporters that the children were being rehydrated and were still unable to eat food.
“But overall the condition of the children is acceptable,” Velasquez said.
Officials praised the courage of the oldest of the children, a girl who they say has some knowledge of how to survive in the rainforest and led the children through the ordeal.
The four children were in the Cessna single-engine propeller plane, which was also carrying three adults, when the pilot declared an emergency due to engine failure. The small plane dropped off radar a short time later, and the weeks-long search for survivors began.
An Air Force video released Friday showed a helicopter using ropes to pull the youth up as it was unable to land in the dense rainforest. The military on Friday tweeted photos showing a group of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children, who were wrapped in thermal blankets. One of the soldiers brought a bottle to the lips of the youngest child.
Petro called the children “an example of survival” and predicted their saga “will go down in history.”
Two weeks after the crash, on May 16, a search team found the plane in a thick part of the rainforest and recovered the bodies of the three adults on board, but the young children were nowhere to be found.
Sensing they might be alive, the Colombian army stepped up the pursuit and sent 150 soldiers with dogs into the area, where fog and thick foliage greatly limited visibility. Dozens of volunteers from local tribes also joined the search.
The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, congratulates a nurse who is caring for one of the four indigenous children who survived a plane crash in the Amazon. Photo: AP
Soldiers in helicopters dropped boxes of food into the jungle, hoping it would help support the children. Planes flying over the area fired flares to help search teams on the ground at night, and rescuers used loudspeakers to play a recorded message from the siblings’ grandmother telling them to stay put.
The announcement of their rescue came shortly after Petro signed a truce with representatives of the National Liberation Army rebel group. In line with his government’s announcements highlighting its efforts to end internal conflicts, he highlighted the military and local communities working together to find the children.
“The meeting of knowledge: local and military,” he tweeted. “Here is a different path for Colombia: I believe this is the true path of peace.”