On Friday night, deep in the Colombian jungle, army radios crackled to life with the message the nation had been praying for: “Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle.” How 4 children survived 40 days in a hostile Colombian jungle?
The military code revealed that four children who had been missing in the jungle for 40 days had been discovered alive.
The children, all members of the indigenous Huitoto people, had gone missing after their light plane crashed into the Amazon in the early hours of May 1.
The tragedy killed their mother, leaving the children, ages 13, nine, four, and one, stranded alone in a jungle teeming with snakes, jaguars, and mosquitos.
Rescuers initially feared the worst, but footprints, partially eaten wild fruit, and other clues quickly gave them hope that the children were still alive after leaving the crash site in search of help.
Over the next six weeks, the children battled the elements – and the odds – in what Colombian President Gustavo Petro described as “an example of total survival that will be remembered in history.”
If there were ever a family well-prepared to face such an ordeal, it was the Mucutuys.
How 4 children survived 40 days in hostile Colombian jungle
Huitoto people learn to hunt, fish, and gather from a young age, and their grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, told reporters that the eldest children, Lesly and Soleiny, knew their way in the jungle.
Damarys Mucutuy, the children’s aunt, told Colombian media that growing up, the family would play a “survival game” together.
“When we played, we set up like little camps,” she recalled. Thirteen-year-old Lesly, she added, “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”.
Following the crash, Lesly constructed makeshift shelters out of branches held together with hair ties.
She also found Faria, a type of flour, in the wreckage of the Cessna 206 plane they were flying in.
The children ate seeds until the flour ran out, according to Edwin Paki, one of the indigenous leaders who participated in the search effort.
“There’s a fruit, similar to passionfruit, called avichure,” he said. “They were looking for seeds to eat from an avichure tree about a kilometer and a half from the site of the plane crash.”
Astrid Cáceres, head of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, said the timing of their ordeal meant “the jungle was in harvest” and they could eat fruit that was in bloom.
But they still faced significant challenges surviving in the inhospitable environment.
Also read: “Absolute Survival”: Days after plane crash, Children found alive in forest
Speaking to BBC Mundo on Saturday, indigenous expert Alex Rufino said the children were in “a very dark, very dense jungle, where the largest trees in the region are”.
And while there are leaves with which the children could purify water, he warned that “others are poisonous”.
The children had to avoid predators as well as intense rainstorms and may have had to avoid armed groups said to be active in the jungle.
According to President Petro, the children were forced to defend themselves from wild dogs at one point.
Mr. Rufino, on the other hand, pointed out that a 13-year-old raised in an indigenous community would already have many of the skills required to thrive in such an environment.
The children were “raised by their grandmother,” a widely respected indigenous elder, according to John Moreno, leader of the Guanano group in Vaupes, in the south-eastern part of Colombia where they were raised.
“They used what they learned in the community, relied on their ancestral knowledge in order to survive,” he said.
