The clues that led rescuers to four children lost for 40 days in the Amazon
By Lucy Cormack
Forty days after surviving the catastrophic plane crash that killed their mother, four children were discovered in the depths of the Amazon jungle carrying clothes, a towel, a torch, two mobile phones, a music box and a bottle.
Extraordinary details of the Colombian children’s epic tale of survival have emerged in the days since their discovery, which was first declared over Colombian army radios with one word: “miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle”.
In this photo released by Colombia’s Armed Forces Press Office, soldiers and Indigenous men pose for a photo with the four Indigenous children who were missing after a deadly plane crash.Credit: Colombia’s Armed Force Press Agency/AP
The siblings, aged 13, 9, 4, and a now 12-month-old baby, survived the impact of the Cessna 206 plane crash that killed three adults, including the pilot and the children’s mother on May 1. It has since emerged the mother survived for days before succumbing to her injuries.
Rain water, a three kilogram bag of cassava flour and jungle seeds and fruits sustained the young survivors and helped rescuers track their location, while the eldest constructed makeshift shelters from branches held together with hair elastics.
Their names are Lesly Jacobo Bonbaire, 13; Solecni Ranoque Mucutuy, 9; Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy, 4; and Cristian Neryman Ranoque Mucutuy, now aged one.
A jubilant Colombian President Gustavo Petro visited the children in a Bogota hospital at the weekend, where authorities say they are in an “acceptable” condition. Petro has called their story “an example of total survival which will remain in history”.
“The jungle saved them,” he said. “They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.”
The crash
Seven people were on board the Cessna 206 aircraft as it flew from Araracuara airport in Caqueta and San Jose del Guaviare, a city in Guaviare province on May 1. The Amazonian village of Araracuara, along the Caqueta River, is about 622 kilometres from Colombia’s capital, Bogota.
The light aircraft issued a mayday alert due to engine failure during the journey over the Amazon rainforest in the southern Caqueta department, the civil aviation authority said in a statement at the time.
A soldier stands in front of the wreckage of the Cessna C206 that crashed in the jungle of Solano in the Caqueta state of Colombia.Credit: AP
The bodies of the three adults were found in wreckage by military searchers, including the pilot of the Avianline Charter commercial flight, two weeks after the crash. One report suggested the children had been sitting at the back of the plane, which endured less damage in the crash.
With the four children unaccounted for, a mass search was launched, before the discovery of personal belongings, a feeding bottle, used nappies, half-eaten pieces of fruit and footprints in areas close to the crash site, maintaining hopes that they would be found alive.
Since their rescue, the children have claimed their mother, Magdalena Mucutui Valencia, in fact survived for four days after the May 1 crash. The father of two of the youngest children, Manuel Ranoque, told local reporters the children’s mother would have told the children to “go away” and leave the wreckage site to survive.
A feeding bottle found during the search for the four children lost in the Amazon. Credit: Colombian army
The search in virgin jungle terrain
“We are looking for them. Don’t move any further, stay near a stream or ravine. Make noise. Make smoke. We are going to save them. We are close by. Your grandmother Fatima and family are looking for you.”
The text was printed on thousands of bright pink leaflets in Spanish and in the children’s indigenous language, Uitoto, dropped and distributed by rescue teams in the search area. In total, 10,000 leaflets were dropped in the dense forest from helicopters at low altitude, along with 100 survival kits containing food, flares, water and whistles.
Helicopter speakers also blared voice messages recorded by their grandmother to reassure the children that a search rescue operation was under way.
Search operations intensified about three weeks after the crash when the military discovered an “improvised” shelter-like structure held together by hair elastics, with shoes and scissors also found in the vicinity.
More than 160 soldiers were involved in the search, which military forces said could canvas an area of about 323 square kilometres, or 80 per cent of the area of Bogota, a city of 8 million people.
Confusion over the search emerged when President Petro on May 18 claimed in a statement on Twitter that the children had been found.
“After arduous searching by our military, we have found alive the four children who went missing after a plane crash in Guaviare. A joy for the country,” Petro said in the now-deleted tweet.
He later issued an apology, retracting the statement and saying that the military and indigenous communities were continuing their tireless search “to give the country the news it is waiting for”.
How they survived
After first surviving the deadly crash that killed their mother, the children faced harrowing conditions in some of the thickest and most untouched rainforest terrain in the ancient Amazon jungle.
Jaguars, snakes and mosquitos all inhabit the area, while much of the flora, seeds and fruits are deadly. Indigenous elders said the jungle was “in harvest”, adding that the children would have also faced intense rainstorms.
The children are members of the Huitoto ethnic group, meaning they were better equipped than most to navigate and survive the dangerous conditions.
Speaking to Colombian media, the children’s aunt said the family often played a “survival game” together growing up.
“When we played, we set up like little camps,” Damarys Mucutuy said. She said 13-year-old Lesly “knew what fruits she can’t eat because there are many poisonous fruits in the forest. And she knew how to take care of a baby”.
Indigenous expert Alex Rufino told BBC Mundo the children were in “a very dark, very dense jungle, where the largest trees in the region are”.
“It is an area that has not been explored. The towns are small, and they are next to the river, not in the jungle,” he said.
The children’s maternal grandmother, Fatima Valencia, told Agence France-Presse that the eldest child, Lesly, had a “warrior”-like nature and “always took care” of her younger siblings, while their grandfather said the nine- and four-year-old brothers were very “skilled” at walking through the forest terrain.
The rescue
Almost two weeks ago, Colombian General Pedro Sánchez said his forces had “a 100 per cent expectation of finding them alive”.
One of the four brothers is taken on a stretcher from a military aircraft that helped in the rescue.Credit: AP
The commander of the Joint Command of Special Operations said some soldiers had walked more than 1600 kilometres during the search, which he said was far more challenging than searching for “a needle in a haystack”.
“It’s like finding a tiny flea in a huge rug that moves in unpredictable directions ... the children are on the move,” he said at the time.
Colombia’s President, Gustavo Petro, greets a nurse tending to one of the four children at a military hospital in Bogota, Colombia.Credit: Colombian Presidential Press Office
When further footprints, likely to belong to 13-year-old Lesly, were discovered at the start of the month, just over three kilometres north-west of the crash site, hopes were raised again.
Colombia’s military heralded the discovery of the children on Friday, releasing photos of a group of soldiers with the four children in the middle of the jungle.
Emotional scenes broadcast on Colombian television showed Colombian Air Force soldiers giving medical attention inside a plane to the surviving children during their air transfer to Bogota, where they are now in hospital reunited with family.
“I’m hungry” and “my mum is dead” are among the first things the children said to rescuers, local media reported.
Manuel Ranoque, father of the two youngest indigenous children who survived.Credit: AP
President Petro and first lady Veronica Alcocer visited the children at the central military hospital in Bogota on Saturday, giving them gifts and meeting their relatives and doctors.
Manuel Ranoque, the father of the one-year-old and four-year-old siblings, said their survival was “a miracle of God”.
“They will tell their stories and you will hear them,” he said. “We, as indigenous people, are able to search for them. We showed the world that we found the plane, and we showed the world that we found the children.”
with AP, Reuters
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.