Four Children Survive 40 Days in the Amazon Jungle After Plane Crash

By Jesse Psota - 6/15/2023

The four children were discovered in the Solano jungle Friday.

Four Indigenous children from Colombia have miraculously survived a plane crash and 40 days in the Amazon jungle, one of the most hostile environments on Earth.

The children, aged 13, 9, 4 and 1, were traveling with their mother from the village of Araracuara to the town of San José del Guaviare on May 1, when their single-engine Cessna plane nose-dived into the dense forest.

Rescuers found the bodies of all three adults on board when they located the crash site 16 days later, but not the children. Instead, they found a baby bottle, a pair of shoes, a flashlight, two cellphones and some footprints leading away from the wreckage.

The children’s maternal grandfather, Narciso Mucutuy, said that the oldest sibling, Lesly, pulled the youngest, Cristin, from the wreckage after spotting her foot. Manuel Ranoque, the father of the two youngest children, said that Lesly told him that their mother was alive for about four days after the crash and had told them to leave her and look after themselves.

The children survived by eating fruit and fariña, a type of cassava flour that is a staple food in the Amazon region. They also collected water in a soda bottle and hid in tree trunks to protect themselves from snakes, animals and mosquitoes.

They were found by Colombian special forces on Friday, June 9, after a search operation that combed through more than 1,600 miles of jungle. The operation involved nearly 200 military and Indigenous rescuers who worked together to find the children.

The children were airlifted to a military hospital in Bogotá, where they are receiving treatment for dehydration and malnutrition. They are expected to remain in the hospital for at least two weeks.

The children’s recovery has sparked scenes of jubilation across Colombia and news headlines around the world. Their survival has been attributed to their will to live, their immunity to many hazards in the jungle and their knowledge of the environment.

“They are actually very well,” said Astrid Caceres, the director of Colombia’s Family Welfare Institute. “They have been drawing. Sometimes they need to let off steam.”

The children’s story has also highlighted the plight of Colombia’s Indigenous communities, who face poverty, violence and discrimination. The children belong to the Nukak Maku tribe, which has been displaced by armed conflict and threatened by illegal mining and deforestation.

The Colombian government has pledged to provide assistance and protection to the children and their relatives. President Iván Duque called their survival “a miracle” and said he would personally visit them at the hospital.