BOGOTÁ, Colombia – The indigenous children rescued in the Amazon jungle after spending 40 days lost after a plane crash waited for four days near the plane for help, but when they saw that it did not arrive, they began to walk to try to get out of there, he revealed this Monday one of his grandparents.
“They stayed around the plane for four days waiting to see if someone could come pick them up,” said Narciso Mucutuy, the children’s grandfather, who added that since no one found them, they began to walk along “trails toward the mountains.”
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 was 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 9-year-old brothers Soleiny Mucutuy for 40 days; She has Noriel Ranoque Mucutuy, 5 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 made 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 from 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.
“The president left me waiting,” said the children’s father.
According to what Manuel Ranoque, father of the two minor children, said on Sunday, Lesly told him that her mother “was alive for four days” and before she died she told them to “go away” in search of help.
The four minors were found on Friday, June 9, in a remote spot in the jungle where some 200 soldiers, 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 CARE
The grandfather recounted that Lesly made the one-year-old baby give up the bottle, 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,” she said. Mucutuy.
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.
