BOGOTA, Colombia (NewsNation) — Colombian authorities rescued three children and a baby in Colombia’s Amazon jungle after they survived a deadly plane crash. The children spent 40 days in the jungle, where snakes and other dangerous predators live.
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro says the children’s mother and two pilots died in a plane crash on May 1 due to engine failure after issuing a Mayday alert. The plane fell off the radar, prompting an intensive search for the children whose ages range from 11 months to 13 years old.
The missing children became the sole focus of a massive rescue operation. Colombia’s Army sent 150 soldiers to search for the missing children and to work with locals in the area.
The bodies of their mother and two pilots were located at the crash site on May 16, but the kids were still missing. According to one of the children, their mother stayed alive for four days.
The children are members of the Huitoto Indigenous group of southeastern Colombia. They relied on their jungle and survival skills they learned early in their childhood to stay alive for 40 days in the Amazon jungle all alone.
The children’s key to survival was cassava flour and their knowledge of the rainforest’s fruit for food. The children also hid in tree trunks to protect themselves from snakes and around animals in the area.
Rescue crews ended up finding a drinking bottle, a makeshift shelter, small footprints and eaten fruit left behind from the children. It led them to believe the children were still alive and to their remarkable discovery.
The children were found three miles away from the crash site.
Manuel Ranoque, father of the two youngest children, thanked God for the miracle in the jungle.
“This is a miracle from God. As beliefs of Indigenous people, for us, this is a test God is giving me, how much faith I have in Him. And I have said it with my own words, as I said it initially, we as Indigenous people are able to search, demonstrating to the world that we found the plane, demonstrating to the world that we found the children,” Ranoque told The Associated Press.
The children are now recovering in a hospital in Bogota. According to officials, they will be there for at least two weeks.
President Petro met with the children while in the hospital and says they survived like “children of the jungle.” He added their stunning story “will remain in history.”