2023-06-12 00:40:21
The combination of ancestral and Western wisdom allowed the rescue of the four Colombian children who were lost for 40 days in the Amazon jungle, following surviving a plane crash, said this Sunday one of the indigenous leaders who participated in the search.
“It was a combination between ancestral wisdom and Western wisdom, or between a military technique and a traditional one. That combination makes hope, joy live,” the national coordinator of the Indigenous Guard of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), Luis Acosta, told reporters.
The minors were found on Friday in a remote point between the departments of Caquetá and Guaviare, where they were searched tirelessly by 200 soldiers, including commandos of the Army Special Forces, and indigenous people from the area, all integrated into “Operation Hope “.
A Colombian Air Force (FAC) helicopter took the minors out of the jungle on Friday night and took them to San José del Guaviare, where a C-295 plane configured as an ambulance picked them up and brought them to the Central Military Hospital of Bogota. The rescued are the 13-year-old girl Lesly Mukutuy, who was in charge of taking care of her brothers Soleiny Mukutuy, 9, for 40 days; She has Noriel Ronoque Mukutuy, five years old, and Cristin Neruman Ranoque, a one-year-old baby.
All this following the accident that occurred on May 1 when a Cessna 206 plane from the Avianline Charter’s company in which the four children were traveling along with their mother plus an indigenous leader and the pilot, crashed in the Colombian Amazon jungle. The three adults died in this event.
Teamwork
Acosta valued the joint work of the communities and the soldiers who participated in “Operation Hope.” “The force that was given to the children was combined, of the public force and the spiritual force. The medicine that was used was western medicine and traditional medicine, since it is very important to have the focus of the indigenous peoples and that is why traditional medicine is essential for healing,” he said.
Acosta assured that “the proper health practices in the healing of Lesly, Soleiny, Tien Noriel and Cristin” allowed them to survive 40 days. He added that now that they are recovering in the hospital, traditional techniques should be combined with Western medicine to treat them.
The mother of the four rescued indigenous children remained alive four days following the plane crash, her husband revealed this Sunday. Her daughter Lesly) told her that “Your mom was alive for four days, so before she died, your mom tells you, perhaps, ‘Go away, you’re going to see who your dad is, who does know what dad’s love is like (I) showed you ‘”, Manuel Miller Ranoque told the press next to the hospital where minors from the Huitoto community are recovering.
Lesly and her three little brothers were found on Friday in the middle of the Amazon jungle in the south of the country and 5 km from the accident site. Between May 15 and 16, a group of soldiers found the pilot dead in the cockpit in the department of Caquetá. The plane was trapped between trees and had the front part destroyed.
The search was difficult due to the thick vegetation with 40-meter-high trees, jaguars and snakes, and the permanent rain that prevents possible calls for help from being heard. Lesly, who has a “warrior” nature and is very “intelligent”, kept his younger siblings safe, according to his grandparents in interviews.
threats
The Colombian Amazon jungle is an extensive territory, difficult to access by river and without roads, where the inhabitants usually travel on private flights. In addition, there is a presence of rebels who departed from the peace agreement between the FARC guerrillas. LThe minors boarded the plane with their mother on May 1 to flee from the so-called FARC dissidents, who recruit and intimidate the inhabitants of the area. The father had already escaped and was waiting to be reunited with his family, according to press reports. “The only thing they want is economic interest and as long as you don’t accept what they say, you are an enemy to them,” said Ranoque, questioned regarding alleged threats.
“They are very finished”
Although fragile, the children are out of danger according to the first medical reports and are receiving treatment with bland foods, psychological care and traditional indigenous care. “They are very exhausted, they have their little wounds, they have their bumps (…) they came out with jungle diseases (…) but they are fine, in good hands,” said the children’s grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, on Sunday. In photographs disseminated in local media, they look very thin and the oldest has a bump on the forehead.
Faithful to the beliefs of the Amazonian peoples, the indigenous people implemented traditional rituals and practices typical of their knowledge of the jungle to find the whereregardings of the minors. According to the government, they were the ones who first sighted the children in the middle of the thick vegetation. “We believe a lot in the jungle, which is our mother. That’s why I always had faith and said, it’s that neither the jungle nor nature have ever betrayed me,” Ranoque said.
Lesly, 13 years old, is the eldest of the 4 siblings who had been wandering the jungles of Guaviare for 40 days. “She was the girl, the eldest, our heroine, the one who with her wisdom cared for and protected her siblings,” explains the director of the Land Restitution Unit, Giovanny Yule, one of those who led the search. .
The children’s great-uncle, Fidencio Valencia, said they got hold of some cassava flour they had on the plane. And surely the knowledge of Lesly and his brothers as indigenous Uitoto of nature, of the fruits that can be eaten, has allowed them to feed themselves. “As our elders say, someone oriented them and someone guided them, they had the wisdom of how to eat, get water, and of course how to endure hunger,” Yule explains.
The story of the children is still unknown
The story of how they survived both a plane that crashed vertically into the ground and then 40 days, is still unknown, but according to the indigenous “elders”, “When someone is welcomed or gets lost, they say that usually there are always people who guide them and guide them,” said Yule.
They also included another type of knowledge, that of the elders: “There was a spiritual conversation with the spirits of the mother jungle and in that conversation an exercise was made to open the way to be able to be in the territory and to be able to harmonize the jungle, to be able to establish an agreement so that the mother jungle can deliver the children,” Yule explained.
In the jungle, each entity -river, tree, animal, mountain- has its spirit and for this reason this “pact” with the mother jungle, they explain, is essential. The mother jungle welcomed them and in a certain sense did not let them leave. But she has finally “let go” of them and, according to Yule, also to send a message: “indigenous children must be protected because they are being badly beaten.”
Many of these cultures are lost, with the extinction of peoples, and children are the ones who suffer the most from violence as they are exposed to the violence of armed groups. These four children have managed to survive but many others do not in their own communities, where armed groups enter to kill indiscriminately or recruit them, as happened with the other four minors that FARC dissidents murdered in Putumayo following they tried to flee from their ranks a few weeks ago.
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