Dikhyaa Mohanty 
After surviving an airplane accident in the Amazon that claimed the lives of three adults, four indigenous children were missing for 40 days before being discovered by Colombian military. Officials in the South American nation made the announcement of the children’s rescue on Friday, giving a happy conclusion to a story that had its highs and lows as rescuers desperately searched the jungle for the children. The siblings, including an 11-month-old baby, were being treated in a military hospital in the nation’s capital on Saturday, but it was still a mystery how they had survived.
Upon his return from Cuba, where he agreed a cease-fire with leaders of the National Liberation Army rebel organization, President Gustavo Petro rejoiced over the news. On Saturday, he’s supposed to meet with the kids. They were referred to as a “example of survival” by Petro, who also prophesied that their story “will remain in history.”
A radio station was told by the children’s aunt Damaris Mucutuy that “the children are fine” despite the fact that they were discovered with bug bites and indications of dehydration. The youngsters had been provided mental health care, according to Mucutuy, who arrived to the hospital with other family members around daybreak. A helicopter was shown using lines to lift the children up in an air force video since it was unable to land in the deep rainforest where they were discovered. The air force reported that the plane was headed to San Jose del Guaviare, a tiny settlement on the outskirts of the jungle, when it took off in the waning light.
Although the four siblings, ages 13, 9, 4, and 11 months, are members of an Indigenous community that lives in the isolated area, no information was provided on how they were able to survive on their own for so long. The military posted images of a group of troops and volunteers posing with the kids while they were covered in thermal blankets on Friday. The tiniest youngster was given a bottle by one of the troops. The Cessna single-engine propeller plane carrying six people and a pilot made an emergency declaration owing to an engine failure in the early hours of May 1. This is when the tragedy occurred.
Shortly after the little plane vanished from radar, a desperate hunt for survivors started. The plane was discovered in a dense area of the jungle two weeks after the disaster, on May 16, and the remains of the three adults on board were retrieved, but the little children were not present. When the Colombian army realized they could still be alive, they intensified the search and flew 150 troops with dogs into the region. Numerous Indigenous tribal volunteers also contributed to the hunt.
Soldiers in helicopters dropped cartons of food into the forest during the search in an area where vision was severely hindered by mist and dense vegetation in the hopes that it would help sustain the kids. Rescuers utilized speakers to broadcast a message recorded by the siblings’ grandmother encouraging them to stay in one location, while planes flew over the forest firing flares to aid search teams on the ground in the dark. Additionally, there were rumors concerning the whereabouts of the kids, and on May 18, the president tweeted that the kids had been located. He then erased the post, alleging a government agency had given him incorrect information.
When the plane crashed, the four kids and their mother were flying from the Amazonian town of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare. They belong to the Huitoto tribe, and according to officials, the older kids in the group knew how to live in the rain forest.
On Friday, after confirming the children had been rescued, the president said that for a while he had believed the children were rescued by one of the nomadic tribes that still roam the remote swath of the jungle where the plane fell and have little contact with authorities. But Petro added that the children were first found by one of the rescue dogs that soldiers took into the jungle. Officials did not say how far the children were from the crash site when they were found. But the teams had been searching within a 4.5-kilometer (nearly 3-mile) radius from the site where the small plane nosedived into the forest floor. As the search progressed, soldiers found small clues in the jungle that led them to believe the children were still living, including a pair of footprints, a baby bottle, diapers and pieces of fruit that looked like it had been bitten by humans.
