Key Points
- On 1 May, a small plane carrying seven people crashed in the Colombian jungle.
- While their mother and two adults perished, four young siblings survived.
- It appears the children relied at first on meagre supplies found on the plane, then fruit foraged from the jungle.
The world watched on with joy and amazement last week as four young children emerged from a 40-day ordeal lost in Colombia.
The, in which the children’s mother and two other adults perished, on 1 May.
The four siblings, aged one, five, nine and 13, survived the crash but were left to fend for themselves while lost in Colombia's southern jungle.
They were found on Friday local time in Caqueta province, after weeks of searching by the military and Indigenous communities.
Here’s what we know about how the youngsters managed to survive on their own in the jungle for more than five weeks, and what's next for them.
How did the ordeal begin?
The ordeal began in the early hours of 1 May, when the Cessna 206 aircraft carrying seven people and travelling between Araracuara airport in Caqueta and San Jose del Guaviare, a city in Guaviare province, issued a mayday alert due to engine failure.
According to officials, the group was attempting to flee members of an armed group who had made threats.
The three adults on board the plane, pilot Hernando Murcia Morales, Yarupari Indigenous leader Herman Mendoza Hernández, and the children's mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia, died in the crash, and their bodies were found inside the plane.
The four children were the only survivors of the plane crash on 1 May. Source: AAP, AP
The youngest of the children turned one while in the jungle, while her brother had his fifth birthday, a family member said.
The eldest, Lesly, is now being praised for her bravery in leading her two younger sisters and brother through the ordeal.
A team of soldiers and Indigenous people searched for weeks for the four children lost in the jungle after their plane crashed on 1 May. Source: AAP / Colombian Presidency Handout
Clues about the siblings' whereabouts had been reported for weeks following the crash as the search dubbed Operation Hope continued.
What did the children live on?
While details of the incredible survival story are still emerging, it appears that the siblings ate very little during their 40-day ordeal - relying at first on meagre supplies found on the plane, then fruit foraged from the jungle.
The children appeared very thin in photos shared by Colombia's military following the rescue.
According to a family member who spoke to reporters, the children survived at first by eating fariña - cassava flour - that they found on the plane, then seeds after the flour ran out.
At first, the children ate cassava flour that they found on the plane. They then turned to seeds and fruit from the jungle. Source: iStockphoto / Getty
Head of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, Astrid Cáceres, said the children were also able to forage fruit from the jungle.
The air force also dropped packages of food and bottled water, along with 10,000 leaflets that included survival instructions, around the area where the children were thought to be lost in over the course of the rescue mission.
How Indigenous knowledge and ‘warrior’ spirit proved key to survival
Indigenous wisdom and the efforts of Indigenous people who joined the rescue mission are being credited for helping the siblings survive.
The four young children are members of the Huitoto Indigenous group, and knowledge of how to survive in the jungle passed down to them was said to be key to their survival.
“It was a combination between ancestral wisdom and Western wisdom, or between military technique and traditional technique," said Luis Acosta, the leader of the Indigenous Guard of the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia.
"That combination kept hope and joy alive."
A traditional doctor performs a ritual during the press conference of Luis Acosta (right), coordinator of the Indigenous guard in charge of searching for the children lost in the Amazon jungle. Source: AAP / Mauricio Duenas Castaneda
"Their learning from Indigenous families and their learning of living in the jungle has saved them,” he said.
"They are children of the jungle, and now they are children of Colombia."
The eldest, 13-year-old Lesly, was able to protect and guide her siblings thanks to her “warrior” spirit, grandmother Fatima Valencia said.
"I am very grateful, and to mother earth as well, that they were set free," she said.
The leader of the search operation, General Pedro Sanchez, credited the 70 Indigenous people with intimate knowledge of the land, who joined 160 soldiers in the rescue effort, for the ultimate success of the mission.
What’s next for the young survivors?
The children were taken to a military hospital in Colombia’s capital Bogota, where they currently remain.
The children are in an "acceptable" state of health, the government said on Saturday.
President Petro, his family and other officials visited the children at the hospital on Saturday morning.
Colombia's President Gustavo Petro greets a nurse tending to one of the four Indigenous children who survived the Amazon plane crash. Source: AAP, AP / Cesar Carrion
"They are very thin, but I know they're in good hands," the children's great-uncle Fidencio Valencia told journalists as he left the hospital.
"We never expected to find them so well."
The siblings had some insect bites and other minor injuries, army Major General Carlos Rincon said, but "life-threatening conditions are ruled out".
On Sunday, the father of the two youngest siblings said they would tell their own story about how they survived the ordeal.
"They will tell their stories, and you will hear them," Manuel Ranoque, the father of the one-year-old and five-year-old children, said after visiting them in the hospital.
"It's not easy to ask them because the children went 40 days without eating well, so I have not been able to get information from the oldest child," he told reporters.
Mr Ranoque also told reporters the children's mother had survived for four days after the crash, an account disputed by another family member who also spoke to journalists. News agency Reuters was not able to independently verify the information.
