BOGOTA: Four indigenous children managed to stay alive in Colombia’s Amazon rainforest for 40 days after surviving a plane crash, due to their bravery and honed jungle smarts.
Against all odds, four siblings Lesly, Soleiny, Tien Noriel, and Cristin – aged 13, nine, five, and one – were found weak but alive on Friday following a large search by 200 soldiers and indigenous jungle experts.
Children’s survival in a jungle
According to AFP, the children were traveling with their mother, who died in the aftermath of the small plane crash on May 1 that killed the two other adults on the plane. This is what experts have to say about the children’s survival, which was hailed a “miracle” by the search’s commanding officer, hardened military general Pedro Sanchez.
The children stayed around the plane wreck for the first few days following the crash, eating cassava flour and other items they found on board. When their food ran out, the children decided to try to find a way out of the jungle, which was packed with dangerous animals and armed guerrillas. On their odussey, the children ate “chontaduro (palm fruit) and wild mango… fruits from the jungle,” according to Sanchez.
According to Luis Acosta of the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia, a member of the search team, they had also grazed on seeds. For the first few days after the crash, the children stayed near the plane debris, eating roots and other plants they recognized as edible. Even though the children were extremely small, it was enough to keep them alive, though the children were very weak when found, with Tien Noriel no longer able to walk.
According to another Indigenous search team member, Henry Guerrero, Lesly brought a soda bottle from the plane and followed a path that was never far from the river so they would always have something to drink. It was unclear whether the children found or consumed any of the food and water that had been air-dropped into the bush for them by the army.
In addition to the bottle Lesly collected from the crash site, Guerrero said she packed a suitcase with a tarpaulin, a towel, a torch, and some clothes. These had been used by the children to construct a rudimentary shelter, which they had moved several times. They slept on the ground on a towel. The children brought two cell phones, which they most likely used to “distract themselves at night.” until the batteries died, said Guerrero.
There is no signal in the rainforest, so the children could not have called for assistance. Lesly also had a little music box in her bag. Lesly has received particular recognition from Colombia’s defense ministry: “It is thanks to her, her courage and her leadership, that the three others were able to survive, with her care, her knowledge of the jungle.”
Guerrero believes Lesly is definitely “very intelligent” based on her suitcase items selection. According to Acosta, the older children know the jungle “very well.” They are Huitoto Indigenous people, and their children are taught the traditions of the rainforest from an early age. “They understand what to eat and what not to eat.” They survived as a result of this.
The search by dozens of people and many dogs was hampered by harsh rainforest conditions: 16-hour-a-day rain reduced visibility and made it difficult to track the children’s trail. The rescuers traveled almost 2,600 kilometers (1,615 miles) before finding the children five kilometers from the wreck.
The siblings are being treated medically and psychologically. According to Astrid Caceres, head of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute, the children were catching up on sleep on Monday, and the two eldest were dealing with fever spikes. Caceres said that their recovery was going “as expected… the prognosis is still two to three weeks” of hospitalization in Bogota.
