2023-05-18 00:44:10
Colombian authorities announced, on Wednesday, the finding of four children alive following they went missing more than two weeks ago following their plane crashed in the Amazon jungle, in “good news for the entire country,” according to President Gustavo Petro.
“After arduous search efforts by our military forces, we have found the four children who went missing due to a plane crash, and they are alive,” Petro wrote on Twitter.
Authorities deployed more than 100 soldiers with sniffer dogs to search for the children who were on a plane that crashed in the Amazon on May 1, killing their mother and two other adults.
Rescue teams believe that the four Aboriginal brothers, three children aged 13, 9 and 4 and an 11-month-old baby, have been wandering in the virgin forest of the southern province of Caqueta since their plane crash on May 1.
Earlier Wednesday, the armed forces said search efforts had intensified following rescue workers found an “improvised shelter with logs and branches”, reinforcing their conviction that the children were alive.
In the photos published by the armed forces, scissors and a hair tie appeared between the branches on the forest floor.
Before that, a baby drinking bottle and a half-eaten piece of fruit were found.
Between Monday and Tuesday, the soldiers found the bodies of the pilot and two adults who were traveling from the jungle to San Jose del Guaviare, one of the main cities in the Amazon rainforest in Colombia.
Among the dead was Ranoc Mokotoi, the mother of the four children, a Huitutu.
The searches were hampered by giant trees that can reach 40 meters in height, wild animals and heavy rains, all of which made Operation Hope difficult.
Three helicopters were used to help, one of which released a recorded message from the children’s grandmother in Huitoto warning them not to move into the forest.
The authorities did not specify the cause of the crash.
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