From Colombian President Gustavo Petro/Twitter
Colombian President Gustavo Petro shared the photo via social media saying, “A joy for the whole country! The four children who disappeared 40 days ago in the jungles of Colombia appear alive.”
CNN
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Four small children have been found alive after more than a month of wandering in the Amazon where they survived like “children of the jungle,” according to Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
“Their learning from indigenous families and their learning to live in the jungle saved them,” Petro told reporters on Friday, after announcing on Twitter that they had been found after being missing for 40 days .
Petro said the children were united when they were found, adding that they showed an example of “total survival that will be remembered in history.”
“They were children of the forest and now they are children of Colombia,” he added.
Revealing their discovery earlier in the day, the Colombian president tweeted a picture that appeared to show search crews tending to the children in a forest clearing, with the words: “A joy for the whole country!”
The children, who appear weak in the photos, were examined by doctors and will be taken to the town of San Jose del Guaviare. They are expected to receive further treatment in Bogota, the capital, or Villavicencio, a larger town.
Petro said that the children are weak, need food and to be assessed on their mental status. “Let the doctors do their assessment and we will find out,” he added.
Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, age 13, Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, and baby Cristin Ranoque Mucutuy were stranded in the forest on May 1, the only survivors of a fatal plane crash.
Their mother, Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia, died in the crash along with two other adult passengers: pilot Hernando Murcia Morales and Yarupari indigenous leader Herman Mendoza Hernández.
The series of disappearances of children deep into the jungle has sparked a massive search operation led by the military involving more than a hundred Colombian special forces troops and more than 70 indigenous scouts roaming the area.
For weeks, the search turned up only tantalizing clues, including footprints, a dirty diaper and a bottle. Family members said the oldest child had some experience in the jungle, but hopes faded as the weeks went on.
At one point in their ordeal, they had to defend themselves from a dog, Petro said.
He called the children’s survival a “gift of life” and a sign that they were “taken care of in the forest.”
The Colombian president said he spoke with the children’s grandfather who said their survival was in the hands of the forest that ultimately chose to return them.
Indigenous leader Lucho Acosta, the coordinator of indigenous scouts, credited the “extra effort” of search and rescue teams and local authorities to find the children in a statement on Friday.
“They all put in a little effort to make this Operation Hope a success, and we hope that the children come out alive and stronger than before. We hoped with the strength of our ancestors, and our strength won,” he said.
“We didn’t stop looking for them until the miracle came,” the Colombian Defense Ministry tweeted.
During a press conference Friday night, Petro said he hopes to talk to the children on Saturday.
“The most important thing now is what the doctors said, they have been gone for 40 days, their health condition must have been stressed. We have to check their mental condition as well,” he said.
Petro, who was previously forced to back down after mistakenly tweeting that they had been found last month, described the children’s 40-day saga as “an incredible testament to survival.”