The four young Colombian siblings who managed to survive for 40 days in the Amazon jungle after their plane crashed have been reunited with their family as further details emerged of their astonishing feat of endurance.
The children’s grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, who visited them in the Bogotá hospital where they are recuperating, said they were “shattered but in good hands and it’s great they’re alive”.
“We were in the darkness, but now dawn has broken and I have seen the light,” he said.
Damaris Mucutuy, an aunt, told a radio station the children were fine despite being dehydrated and having insect bites. She said they had also been offered mental health services.
The children – aged 13, nine, four and 11 months – are member of the Huitoto people. They were travelling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San José del Guaviare when the plane crashed in the early hours of 1 May.
A military sniffer dog found them alive on Friday, after they had spent weeks in an area where snakes, mosquitoes and other animals abound.
Valencia said the siblings had survived by eating fariña, or cassava flour, and by using their knowledge of the rainforest’s fruits.
“When the plane crashed, they took fariña [from the wreckage], and with that they survived,” the children’s grandfather told reporters outside the hospital, where they are expected to remain for a minimum of two weeks.
“After the fariña ran out, they began to eat seeds,” Valencia added. The children appear to owe their lives to the eldest sibling, Lesly, who kept them safely nourished by using the knowledge of the rainforest her mother had passed on to her.
“There’s a fruit, similar to passionfruit, called avichure,” said Edwin Paki, one of the Indigenous leaders who took part in the search effort. “They were looking for seeds to eat from an avichure tree about a kilometre and a half from the site of the plane crash.”
The timing of their ordeal was in the children’s favour. Astrid Cáceres, the head of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, said the youngsters had been able to eat fruit because “the jungle was in harvest”.
Gen Pedro Sánchez, who was in charge of the rescue effort, said rescue teams had passed within 20 to 50 metres (66 to 164ft) of where the children were found on a couple of occasions but had missed them.
“The children were already very weak,” Sánchez said. “Their strength was only enough to breathe or reach a small fruit to feed themselves or drink a drop of water in the jungle.”
The children told officials they had spent some time with a dog, but that it had gone missing. The military was still looking for the dog, a Belgian Shepherd named Wilson, as of Saturday.
Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, who joyfully announced the discovery of the children on Friday, met them in hospital on Saturday. The defence minister, Iván Velásquez, told reporters they were being rehydrated and could not yet eat food.
“But in general, their condition is acceptable,” he said.
An air force video released on Friday showed a helicopter using winches to pull the youngsters up because it was unable to land in the dense rainforest. The military also tweeted pictures showing a group of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children, who were wrapped in thermal blankets. One of the soldiers held a bottle to the smallest child’s lips.
The four children were in a Cessna single-engine propeller plane that was also carrying three adults when the pilot declared an emergency because of engine failure. The small aircraft disappeared off radar a short time later and a weeks-long search for survivors began.
Two weeks after the crash, on 16 May, a search team found the plane in a thick patch of the rainforest and recovered the bodies of the three adults on board, but the children were nowhere to be found.
Sensing they could be alive, Colombia’s army stepped up the hunt and flew 150 soldiers with dogs into the area, where mist and thick foliage greatly limited visibility. Dozens of indigenous volunteers also joined the search.
Soldiers in helicopters dropped boxes of food into the jungle, hoping that it would help sustain the children. Planes flying over the area fired flares to help search crews on the ground at night, and rescuers used speakers that blasted a message recorded by the siblings’ grandmother telling them to stay in one place.
As the search progressed, soldiers found small clues that led them to believe the children were still alive, including footprints, a baby bottle, nappies and pieces of fruit that looked as if humans had taken bites out of them.
“The jungle saved them,” Petro said. “They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.”
The announcement of their rescue came shortly after Petro signed a ceasefire with representatives of the National Liberation Army rebel group. In line with his government’s messaging highlighting his efforts to end internal conflicts, he stressed the joint work of the military and Indigenous communities in helping the children.
“The meeting of knowledge: indigenous and military,” he tweeted. “Here is a different path for Colombia. I believe that this is the true path of peace.”
Petro called the children an “example of survival” and said their saga would “remain in history”.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
