The indigenous childrenRescued in the Colombian Amazon jungle after a plane crash, they stayed for four days near the plane, but when they saw that it did not arrive, they began to walk to try to get out of there, one of their grandparents revealed this Monday.
“They stayed around the plane for four days waiting to see if someone could come to pick them up”Said Narciso Mucutuy, grandfather of the minors who were missing for 40 days, who added that since no one found them, they began to walk “paths to the mountains,” reports Efe.
In statements released by the Ministry of Defense, Mucutuy assured that this was told to him by Lesly, the eldest of the four children, who also told him that after leaving the plane they walked aimlessly and every night they left clues in the places where they slept, in case someone was looking for them.
The 13-year-old girl Lesly has been praised as the heroine of this story of human improvement because it was she who, with her knowledge of the jungle, was in charge of taking care of her brothers Soleiny Mucutuy, 9; She has Noriel Ranoque Mucutuy, five years old, and Cristin Neruman Ranoque, a one-year-old baby.
The minor also told her grandfather that they survived the first days in the jungle eating “fariña”a flour prepared with cassava that is a traditional food of the indigenous people of the Amazon.
survival lesson
After the accident, and seeing that the rescue had not arrived, Lesly took the fariña out of the suitcase, one of the three adults who were traveling with them on the Cessna 206 plane and who perished in the incident that occurred on May 1 in the jungle between the departments of Caquetá and Guaviare, recounted the grandfather at the Central Military Hospital (HMC) in Bogotá, where the children are recovering.
The three adults who died in the accident were the mother of the children, the pilot and an indigenous leader from the area. According to Manuel Ranoque, father of the two minor children, said yesterday, Lesly told him that her mother “was alive for four days” and before he died he told them to “go away” in search of help.
The four minors were found on Friday in a remote part of the jungle where some 200 soldiers searched for them tirelessly for weeks, including commandos of the Army Special Forces, and indigenous people from the area, all integrated into “Operation Hope.”
After the rescue, they were transferred by helicopter of the Colombian Air Force (FAC) to San José del Guaviare, the capital of Guaviare, where a C-295 plane configured as an ambulance picked them up and took them to Bogotá.
baby’s bottle
The grandfather recounted that Lesly made the one-year-old baby’s bottle run out, because “she gave her a little until it ran out,” after which she began to give her only water.
“By the time they were found, (Lesly) says she couldn’t walk anymore. She was already very tired, very tired. So they huddled in one place and sat down. She had the little girl between her legs when they found them,” Mucutuy said.
While details about how the children survived 40 days in the jungle continue to be revealed, the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF) will maintain their custody until they resolve the family problems between the maternal grandparents and Manuel Ranoque, father of two of them, who requested on Sunday they let him live with the four minors in Bogotá.
