Details of plane crash emerge as 4 children who survived 40 days in Colombian jungle recover

Manuel Ranoque, father of the two youngest children, told reporters that one of the children told him their mother was alive for about four days after the crash

An uncle said one of the children told him they hid in tree trunks to protect themselves in a jungle area filled with snakes, animals and mosquitoes

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Four Indigenous children were found alive on Friday after spending more than a month lost in a Colombian forest following a small plane crash that triggered a massive rescue operation. Photo: Colombia’s Armed Force Press Office via AP

Published: 2:42am, 12 Jun 2023

The four Indigenous children who survived 40 days in the Amazon jungle after their plane crashed were recovering on Sunday in a military hospital in Colombia, as new details of their harrowing story emerged in a country still mesmerised by their saga.

The children, aged 13, 9, 4, and 11 months, are expected to remain for at least two weeks in a hospital receiving treatment after their rescue on Friday, but some are already speaking and wanting to do more than stay in bed, according to family members.

Manuel Ranoque, father of the two youngest children, told reporters outside the hospital on Sunday that the oldest of the four surviving children – 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy – told him their mother was alive for about four days after the plane crashed on May 1 in the Colombian jungle.

Manuel Ranoque, father of two of the four Indigenous children who were found alive after being lost for 40 days in the Amazon rainforest, speaks to the press outside a military hospital where the children are recovering, in Bogota, Colombia on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Ranoque said before she died, the mother likely would have told them: “go away,” apparently asking them to leave the wreckage site to survive. He provided no more details.

Fidencio Valencia, a child’s uncle, told media outlet Noticias Caracol the children were starting to talk and one of them said they hid in tree trunks to protect themselves in a jungle area filled with snakes, animals and mosquitoes. He said they were exhausted.

“They at least are already eating, a little, but they are eating,” he said after visiting them at the military hospital in Bogota, Colombia. A day earlier, Defence Minister Iván Velásquez had said the children were being rehydrated and could not eat food yet.

The children were travelling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane went down.

The Cessna single-engine propeller plane was carrying three adults and the four children when the pilot declared an emergency owing to engine failure. The small aircraft fell off the radar a short time later and a search for survivors began.