………bitten, dehydrated and malnourished but mercifully alive
There is so much joy in Columbia and all over the world as four children who had been in the amazon forest for 40 days after surviviving a plane crash were resued alive.
The mother of the four children died four days after the crash despite frantic efforts by her to stay alive. The pilot and one other community leader also lost their lives in the plane crash.
Manual Ranoque said his eldest surviving daughter Lesly, 13, told him his wife Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia battled to stay alive but in the end told them to save themselves.
Ranoque, speaking in the Colombian capital Bogota of the children’s astonishing 40-day ordeal before they were rescued by the military said: ‘Let’s be clear, the girl (Lesly) knows everything.
The only thing that she clarified is that the mother was alive for four days. Before she died… she told them “Go!” And you will find out what your dad is made of… and what your father’s love is like.’
The new heartbreaking revelation comes as the four children – Lesly Jacombaire Mucutuy, Soleiny Jacombaire Mucutuy, nine, Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy, four, and one-year-old Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy – remain in a military hospital in Bogota after their astonishing ordeal.
The father of two victims, and stepfather to the others, expressed frustration with hospital authorities on Sunday as they prevented him from seeing two while they recovered.
Tragedy struck on May 1 when the routine flight the mother and four children boarded from Araracuara to the town of San Jose del Guaviare crashed in the jungle.
Minutes after starting the 350km (220 mile) journey, the pilot reported problems with the engine and the plane disappeared from radars.
When the wreckage of the plane was found after weeks of hunting not only were the children not found dead alongside the adults, there was part-eaten fruit that suggested they had all survived.
That sparked a huge hunt across miles of dense and remote Amazon rainforest and the President, Gustavo Petro had mistakenly caused false hope when he said they were safe only to retract his statement and say there was just evidence they might still be alive.
After they were miraculously found, dramatic footage shows how the four children were winched into a rescue helicopter, bitten, dehydrated and malnourished but mercifully alive, and taken to safety for medical treatment.
But the rescue efforts intensified and he delivered the news the country, and the watching world, had hoped for.
‘It is a joy for the whole country,’ Petro Tweeted.
‘They were alone, they themselves achieved an example of total survival which will remain in history.’
The siblings, members of the Huitoto Indigenous group, were dehydrated, malnourished and bitten by insects but are otherwise healthy, rescuers said.
And he put their survival down to their upbringing, saying: ‘ ‘The kids are possessed by nature.’
But he revealed his anger at authorities who he says are not allowing him to see the two older children.
‘This is not a game,’ he said. ‘They are fine. I cannot talk to the (two older) children, I cannot tell you anything about them until the father, the creator (apparently referring to God) allows me to…
‘You will never understand our world. We are indigenous people. We cannot lose time getting an education, we have shown our skills, what we are capable of, we found the airplane, we found the kids, what else do you want?
‘Now may God continue to protect them.’
In an emotional state, he continued: ‘I have only been able to see my two little kids, because the Government will not allow me to see my other two daughters. I don’t know why I can’t see them.
‘They (the authorities) haven’t completely understood that I am coming from 40 days in the jungle, they think I’m coming from a bar or from the streets.’
He went on: ‘I want to thank the military hospital, the kids are in good hands and I think after a month I will have my kids with me, that is my dream.
‘They (the authorities) don’t understand I am their father. The government has taken this as a joke to step over me.
‘I am the father I went to look for them, I searched for them and now that I brought them back, now I cannot see them how is that possible? And the other search teams, the other people, can see them.
‘They are allowed to see them, to take pictures with them. And us, my colleagues that have come from suffering, they haven’t been given any medical attention. I fought 40 days on my knees in the jungle.
‘I have only seen the two older children in photos. And that worries me.
‘I call upon the nation to please respect that I am the dad. They (the older children) have got to talk to me first. How come they are talking to people who when I was in the jungle didn’t even send a glass of water while I was dying of hunger and thirst in the jungle?
The air force had dumped 10,000 flyers into the forest with instructions in Spanish and the children’s indigenous Huitoto language, telling them to stay put.
A baby’s drinking bottle and half-eaten pieces of fruit had been spotted before the shelter’s discovery.
Then nearly two weeks ago, a footprint was found on the muddy jungle floor. Army officials believed it to belong to 13-year-old Lesly.
Leaders from the Huitoto indigenous group expressed hope that the children’s knowledge of fruits and jungle survival skills should give them better odds of being found alive.
Boxes of food were dropped to the jungle floor to help sustain the children. And yesterday the efforts paid off when one of the rescue dogs who had been on their scent led soldiers to the group, the President confirmed. They had been following footprints left on the muddy floor.
‘The jungle saved them,’ Petro said. ‘They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.’
