2023-06-12 00:20:49
“I’m hungry” and “my mom is dead” were the first words to their rescuers of the four indigenous children, found following 40 days of wandering in the Colombian jungle. Two days following this miraculous rescue, Colombian public television broadcast a video of the moment of this incredible encounter on Sunday.
• Read also: Exhausted, but ‘happy’: children rescued from the jungle rest in Bogotá
• Read also: The four children lost in the jungle for 40 days found alive in Colombia
• Read also: Two of the surviving children celebrated their birthdays in the jungle
In these moving images, filmed on a mobile phone, we see the four haggard children, all terribly thinner, the smallest in the arms of one of her rescuers.
“We met the children. Thank God!” commented one of them, members of the Native Guard. One sings, another smokes tobacco (a sacred plant among the natives) and thanks with joy.
Lesly (13), Soleiny (9), Tien Noriel (5) and Cristin (1) were found alive on Friday followingnoon by these rescuers, as they wandered alone in the jungle since the crash on May 1 , of the small Cessna 206 plane in which they were traveling with their mother, the pilot and a relative. All three adults died in the crash.
A moving story
Invited to the set of RTVC (public TV), the team of natives who found the children in the jungle recounted this extraordinary moment.
“The eldest daughter, Lesly, holding the little one by the hand, ran towards me. I took her in my arms, she said to me: “I’m hungry,” said Nicolas Ordoñez Gomes, one of the team members.
“I asked where the boy is. He was lying next to it. After a first hug, and giving him some food, he got up and said to me, very aware of what he was saying: “my mom is dead”.
“We immediately followed up with softer words, saying that we were friends, that we came from the family, from the father, from the uncle. That we were family! He replied: “I want flour and chorizo” (bread and sausage, editor’s note)”, detailed Mr. Ordoñez Gomes.
“Half an hour earlier, we had found a turtle on the way,” said another member of the team. “In the beliefs of our elders, if you find a turtle, you can ask it for a wish, and that wish will come true. I told her “find me the children”, even if we wanted to eat her followingwards. When we found the children, we threw it away, we only thought of the little ones”.
The story on set of these first aids was particularly moving, the saviors of the children, copper-colored skin, wearing caps, colored scarves and sticks (the classic attributes of the native guards).
The commander of the search operations, General Pedro Sanchez, was also present, in uniform and a burgundy beret on his head. “They are the heroes,” he commented, to the attention of the fifteen or so natives present.
A long remission
Three days following the rescue, the children continued to rest out of sight and the excitement of the media in a room at the military hospital in Bogota, where they were airlifted the very evening of their rescue.
They “speak little”, according to their relatives, but revealed that their mother had survived the plane crash for four days before succumbing to her injuries, said their father Manuel Miller Ranoque Morales.
“It is a miracle of God. We thank God who kept the children alive,” Mr. Ranoque continued. “As indigenous people, we showed the world what we were capable of. We found the plane, we found the children,” he said.
“I’m waiting for the children to recover (…) It’s not so easy to ask them questions” following what they have been through, he said once more, pressed by a crowd of journalists.
“After going through such a tragedy, they need to regain their strength (…). We mightn’t really talk”, also commented the grandfather, Fidencio Valencia. “They play with the gifts (…) they are good, they are in good hands”. “We can’t give them too much food right now. This is all a process that will take time.
The father also protested once morest the dissemination of photos of his children in their hospital room broadcast “on social networks”, “it’s unfair”, he said.
At the request of the authorities, most of the photos released so far have concealed the children’s faces, until this Sunday when new snaps and the RTVC video show them extremely emaciated.
Arduous research
The Colombian press began giving details of their ordeal. The children were able to use on their journey a mosquito net, a towel, a minimum of camping equipment, two mobile phones (with rapidly depleted batteries), a flashlight and a small music Box.
After more than a month of fruitless search, the army was regarding to reduce its deployed means. Despite their rations, the special forces commandos each lost between 3 and 10 kilos, with exhausting daily hunts starting at 5:00 a.m. “Each day that started, we said to ourselves: today we find them!” Said one of these elite soldiers, quoted by a weekly.
The army today says it is continuing its search for Wilson, a detection dog lost in the jungle. The name and photos of this six-year-old Malinois are now displayed on windows in Bogota.
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