Grandparents overwhelmed – children rescued in the jungle: “Cry for joy”

Grandmother Fátima Valencia also visited the siblings in the hospital. “I cry with joy. The children are exhausted, but I have my daughter’s flesh and blood back.” The children’s mother was killed in the plane crash in the south of the country on May 1. Since then, soldiers and indigenous peoples have been searching for the children in the rugged terrain.

Father: “I have a high fever.”
The father of the siblings, ages 13, 9, 5 and one, also joined the search. After the children were found, he escorted them to the military hospital in Bogota. “I’ve been hired too. I’m sick,” said Manuel Ranoque. “I have a high fever. I fought for 40 days to find my children.”

double miracle
The four children were found after weeks of searching in the Colombian rainforest. A double miracle, because the siblings not only survived a plane crash, but also 40 days in the dense jungle. Her grandmother attributed the survival of the four native children mainly to the combative nature of the eldest girl, Lesly. She called her granddaughter a “warrior” who made sure the children could survive in the jungle. “She always took care of her siblings regularly when their mother was at work,” she said.

Colombia’s president visits rescued children at a clinic
Colombian President Gustavo Petro was briefed on Saturday at the military hospital in Bogota about the health of the siblings. “The kids are recovering. You drink fluids. But they can’t eat yet,” Defense Minister Iván Velásquez said after the visit. Military doctor Carlos Rincón Arango said the children had a number of minor injuries and were malnourished. Given the circumstances, they are in acceptable condition. He expects a hospitalization of two to three weeks.

The children were found on Friday in the rainforest in the south of the country. They crashed on May 1 with a Cessna 206 propeller plane in the department of Caquetá. The children’s mother, the pilot and an indigenous leader were killed in the accident. For more than a month, soldiers and indigenous people had searched for the siblings in the impassable area. Both the one-year-old girl and the five-year-old boy had birthdays during that time.

The children were discovered three miles from the crash site as the crow flies. The newspaper “El Tiempo” reported on this distance on Saturday, citing the armed forces of the South American country. Using the found objects and traces, the soldiers were able to reconstruct the children’s path. Accordingly, they initially removed four kilometers to the west of the crash site. Then they apparently ran into an obstacle and turned north.

According to media reports, the children in Colombia were on their way with their mother to their father, who had fled the region after continued threats from a splinter group of the FARC guerrilla organization. Although the security situation has improved following the 2016 peace deal between the government and the FARC, parts of the South American country are still controlled by illegal groups. Indigenous peoples, social activists and environmentalists in particular are repeatedly targeted by criminal gangs.

However, after the children were rescued, one person went missing: the Belgian Shepherd Wilson, who according to media reports tracked down traces and contributed significantly to the success of the search, had not returned to the emergency services. The search for Wilson continues, the armed forces announced.