Colombia plane crash: Children reportedly survived 16 days in the forest

• Image Credit: Google

• May 20, 2023 | Dhupali Das

Colombian President Gustavo Petro says there is no proof that four children who went missing after their plane crashed in the...

Digital Desk: Colombian President Gustavo Petro says there is no proof that four children who went missing after their plane crashed in the jungle more than two weeks ago have been rescued.

Search teams have found items in the jungle that they believe belong to the children, as well as a makeshift shelter.

This has led them to suspect that the children have been walking alone through the rainforest since the crash.

However, Petro stated that the information about their rescue could not be verified.

The children, who range in age from 13 to 11 months, were on board a small plane with their mother, a pilot, and a co-pilot when it crashed on May 1. 

The adults were all killed in the crash.

The president himself broke the news of the reported rescue of the children on Wednesday afternoon local time, tweeting that they had been recovered "after rigorous search efforts."

But, less than 24 hours later, he deleted the tweet and wrote, "I have decided to delete the tweet because the information provided by the ICBF (Colombia's child welfare agency) could not be confirmed. I am sorry about what happened. The armed forced and the indigenous communities will carry on with their tireless search in order to give the country the news it is hoping for."

Colombia's child protection agency had previously stated that the president's now-deleted tweet was based on information it had provided.

It stated in a statement that it had received "from the field" information that the children were in good health.

Its director, Astrid Cáceres, told Colombian radio on Thursday morning that the details came from "reliable sources" and that the persons who contacted them described the children's appearance, which matched that of the missing children.

Cáceres, on the other hand, stated that her agency had not yet been allowed to go see the children and that the search would not be called off until that time.

The child protection agency was not alone in reporting that the four children had been rescued.

A pilot stated he had also been told that children had been found by local people deep in the rainforest.

However, soldiers involved in the search claimed that they themselves had not yet been able to reach the children "due to the difficult meteorological conditions and the difficult terrain".

The Cessna 206 light aircraft carrying the children and their mother was travelling from Araracuara, deep in the Amazon jungle in southern Colombia, to San José del Guaviare on May 1 when it disappeared.

The plane's pilot had previously reported engine problems.

Two weeks after going missing, the plane was finally found on Monday following a massive search operation involving more than 100 soldiers.

The bodies of the pilot, co-pilot, and Magdalena Mucutuy, 33, the mother of the four children, were found at the crash scene in Caquetá province.

However, the kids were unable to be located.

The search teams, however, found signs indicating that the children, who are indigenous Huitoto people, survived the crash.

Sniffer dogs found a child's drinking bottle, a set of scissors, a hair tie, and some half-eaten fruit.

The search teams also discovered an improvised shelter made from sticks and branches.

"We believe the children on the plane are still alive. We found traces in a different location, away from the crash site, and a place where they may have sheltered," Colonel Juan José López said on Wednesday.

Fearing that the youngsters would continue to walk deeper into the woods, the military dispatched helicopters that played a recorded message from their grandmother in the Huitoto language imploring them to stay put.

On Wednesday, reports of the children's sightings circulated.

Avianline, the local airline operator that owned the crashed plane, issued a statement confirming that the children had been found.

One of its pilots, who landed near the crash site in Cachiporro, was told that villagers there had been contacted by radio from a remote location called Dumar and told that the children had been found. He stated that they would be transported by boat to Cachiporro.

The company stated that it had no way of knowing if the information was correct, but that the arrival of the youngsters by boat may have been delayed due to heavy rains, which made the river dangerous to navigate.

Indigenous radio stations reportedly stated on Wednesday that the children had been discovered by a local and were being carried by the river to Cachiporro.

The children's father has stated that he is not giving up hope. He said to Caracol Radio that his sister had once been lost in the forest for a month and had returned.

It is believed that the Huitoto people's understanding of fruits and forest survival skills gave young kids a better chance of enduring the ordeal.